


Hey Jude

by atlas (cissysullivan)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Foster homes, M/M, Mental Hospitals, Suicide Attempt, abusive!John, child sexual assault, domestic abuse, self harm implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissysullivan/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary died in a car crash. John spends what little money he makes on drink. Sam can only seem to make enemies at school rather than friends. Dean fights in back alleys and underground clubs to keep his little brother’s belly full and a roof over his head. The Winchesters are a normal family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean

**Author's Note:**

> i made a playlist for this fanfic. i would definitely recommend listening to it while reading the fic. the songs really fit in very well with the writing :) http://8tracks.com/cloudsong1994/hey-jude#smart_id=dj:5303864

The world outside the small white house at the end of the street was dark. Crickets called to one another in the blackness. Every so often a dog would bark and the other dogs on the street would bark back. There were only three streetlights on this road. One of them had stopped working before anyone who currently lived on the street could remember, another had its bulb shot out by a local gang two summers ago. The only light that still worked was right outside the small white house at the end of the street.  
  
It didn't cast much illumination.  
  
It lit up the front of the small white house and a small circle beneath it, but that was about it. Everyone had stopped going outside after dark two summers ago.  
  
Inside the small white house, there lived two boys and one man. The boys thought that the ghost of a woman lived there, too, but they never would've told anyone else. Everyone knew that woman had been put into the ground a long time ago and there were no such thing as ghosts, anyway. Even so, the master bedroom at the end of the small hallway, past the boys' bedroom, past the small bathroom, always felt occupied. Anyone who believed in ghosts wouldn't have thought the boys were lying.  
  
There was no air conditioning in the house, but there were plenty of papers on the small circular wooden table in the kitchen, covered in large numbers and words like "still owed" and "passed due" on them. The living room had one couch, one armchair, a TV that only had four channels, and beer bottles stacked and scattered across every surface. The curtains were drawn, blocking out what little light reached the window from outside. The dirty welcome mat just inside the door was covered in envelopes that contained more papers like the ones on the kitchen table. They were covered in shoe prints and just as neglected as their kitchen counterparts.  
  
In the boys' bedroom down the hall, the window was open. The cool night breeze made the thin curtains flutter inwards. The bedroom was barely big enough to fit both of the boys' beds. There was a nightstand between them and a closet that was constantly open. Clothes were scattered all across the floor and draped over the ends of the beds.  
  
On one of the two beds, the youngest boy slept, his mop of dark hair falling into his eyes. Despite the heat of the night, he had all his blankets pulled up to his chin. He breathed gently into his pillow, his small body rising and falling in time with each breath. Leaning up against the wall on his bed were three stuffed animals: two teddy bears and a small moose. In his arms, he clutched a stuffed dog. It had patches on its body and one of the eyes was missing, but he held it against him like a treasure.  
  
On the other bed was the oldest boy. Dean Winchester, unlike his younger brother, Sam, was awake. His gaze was fixated on the ceiling, only barely illuminated by what little light from the street reached their room. He wasn't dressed as though he were going to sleep. He wore a pair of jeans that hung loosely on his hipbones when he stood and he had no shirt on. His blankets were bunched up at the end of his bed, and in between his first and middle fingers, he held a cigarette. Every now and then, he'd bring it to his lips, take a drag, and then blow the smoke out towards the ceiling, watching it collect there before slowly floating out into the night.  
  
Dean flicked the ash off the end of the cigarette into a small tin can that sat on his window sill as he turned to look at the digital clock that sat on the nightstand.  
  
The time was 1:33.  
  
He swore under his breath.  
  
If he didn't leave now, he was going to be late.  
  
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he grabbed a small black duffle bag that sat on the floor between his and Sam's beds. He stuffed his feet into a pair of worn sneakers that lay next to the bag before leaving the room. He didn't look back. He knew if he did, if he saw Sam lying in bed, sleeping so soundly, looking so innocent, he wouldn't be able to make himself leave.  
  
He'd want to stay and watch him all night.  
  
Shrugging on a dark olive old military jacket, Dean closed the door to the bedroom behind him. He tiptoed passed the sleeping mass that was their father in the armchair facing the broken, fuzzy television. He and his brother had learned early on that bothering their father when he was sleeping or otherwise occupied was more likely to earn them a slap across the face or a fist to the stomach rather than whatever they'd originally wanted. He turned to the old, warped, wooden door before him and carefully cracked it open before slipping out into the night.  
  
He half ran down the street, turning left at the broken lamplight there. He took another left before he reached the main road. He stayed on that road for a while, watching the bright lights of cars rush by him, hurrying home to their families. He caught his reflection in some of their shiny exteriors. With his hood up and his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he looked like the boy parents would tell their children to stay away from. If they knew where he was headed, this would only solidify their beliefs that he was up to no good. And they were right. They just didn't know the reason behind why he did what he did.  
  
Somehow he doubted that would make them more understanding.  
  
After moving steadily along the sidewalk for several blocks, he took a sharp left into an alley. He stopped halfway down it and knocked twice on the door there. An older black man twice Dean's height and weight opened the door. A chain stopped the door from opening all the way. Dean had often thought it was lax security. One well-placed kick to the center of the door and it'd go flying off its hinges, chain or no chain.  
  
"What are you doing back here, Dean?" the man asked. He looked more disappointed than angry. Dean almost felt ashamed, but couldn't quite bring himself to completely feel that emotion.  
  
"You know why I'm here, Rufus," he replied, looking up into the man's face. "Who do you have for me tonight?"  
  
The man sighed. He dragged a hand over his face and closed the door. When he opened it again, there was no chain blocking the way. He stepped aside and let Dean through. He looked at the man expectantly.  
  
"There's a few boys," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "But they're all bigger and stronger than you, Dean. You're going to get your ass handed to you on a silver platter."  
  
Dean was already headed back the way Rufus had pointed, shrugging off his jacket and flexing his fingers. "We'll see," was his only response.  
  
There were several doors open along the hallway. Each one had a different boy inside it, shirtless, taping up their hands, throwing punches to the air. All of them was getting ready to fight. Dean stepped into one of the open rooms, hung his jacket on the hook on the wall, opened up his duffle, pulled out the tape he'd put in there weeks ago, and began weaving it around his fingers over and over and over again until they were thick with the stuff. Then he, too, began throwing punches, dodging invisible fists. He was going to fight one or all of these boys and he had to win each and every fight. Bills were piling up. Sammy needed to eat. It was too hot in their house for them to not have the air conditioning on most of the time.  
  
Once Dean thought he was ready, he closed the door to the small room he'd been in, pulling out the key set in the lock and pinning it to his underwear where no one would see it and be tempted to try to steal his things. The door locked automatically behind him.  
  
A few short steps down the hall was a room that looked like it belonged outdoors. It was packed with a bunch of shirtless, sweaty boys. The ground was dirt and at the center, circled by a wooden fence, were two boys covered in a thin sheen of sweat, each bleeding from a cut on their lip, each with bruises forming on their bodies.  
  
This was where boys came to fight for money. The more fights they won, the more money they got. Once they lost, they were kicked out for the night and given only half of the original money they'd won. When Dean had learned this, he'd quickly become the best fighter of the regular boys that showed up. Most came for fun, others came because their friends did, but a few were like Dean. They came because their families were struggling and they needed the money.  
  
Dean was itching to fight, to get in the ring and beat the boy opposite him to a pulp. It wasn't that he enjoyed hurting others, he just enjoyed the power it gave him, the knowledge that he was helping Sam by doing this and in a home where he had no power and no other way to shield his brother from the horrors of their world, this was the only thing that felt right.  
  
"Who's next?" he asked the boy nearest him.  
  
The boy nodded to a wooden board hanging off the wall near the door. "Winchester and Carlos," he replied. "I don't know Winchester, but Carlos is a big guy. I'll be surprised if Winchester doesn't get his ass kicked."  
  
His hands clenched, the tape between his fingers making it somewhat painful. "He's not going to kick my ass," he told the boy, walking up to the front of the crowd, pushing other boys aside to do so. "Not tonight."  
  
The fight currently going on in the ring ended. The boys cheered. One of them was declared the winner and they cleared out. One had to get home. The other had no choice but to go home. He'd lost. Dean wasn't going to lose. No matter who they put him up against he would win. He rolled his neck on his shoulders, he swung his arms, loosening them up, he stretched them up over his head, pulling at his back muscles.  
  
A boy stepped out from the crowd across from him.  
  
Dean swallowed hard.  
  
The other boy hadn't been lying. This boy, Carlos, was large. His chest was heavily muscled as were his arms and his legs. His hands were taped up like Dean's. He smirked.  
  
The only advantage Dean had on this boy was his size. He could be quick and wear him out. It was the only choice he had. He couldn't go home empty handed. He needed the money. He needed to feed Sammy. He needed to turn on the air conditioning so Sammy wouldn't get a heat stroke while he was trying to do his homework.  
  
 _This is all for Sammy,_  he told himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet, raising his fists in front of his face, waiting for the bell to ring to let them know the match had begun.  _Sammy needs this. You can't lose. You can't fucking lose._  
  
The bell rang and Dean didn't move. Carlos lumbered towards him, aiming a fist for his temple. Dean dodged it easily, stepping under him. He thought about trying to flip him over on his back and pounding his face into a pulp, but there was no guarantee that would work, especially with the other boys' size and strength.  
  
Dodging another punch, Dean tried landing one of his own to the boy's stomach. He winced immediately in regret. Carlos had a stomach harder than a rock.  
  
Carlos pushed him roughly back. Dean hit the wooden fence and clutched it for a moment trying to regain his balance. Carlos came barreling after him, but Dean managed to dodge him again by falling to the floor right between the other boy's legs. He smirked. He couldn't have asked for a better opportunity.  
  
With only a moment's hesitation, he punched the boy as hard as he could in the crotch. Carlos let out a high pitched wail. Dean moved quickly out from under him as he tumbled to the ground, clutching his groin, curled up in a fetal position. The bell rang again and Dean was declared the winner. Next to his name on the board on the wall $150 was written. His brows raised a fraction. That was more than he was usually granted for winning the first match of the night. Carlos must have won several fights before him.  
  
As a few other boys helped Carlos up and out of the ring, a part of Dean felt that maybe how he'd won this first fight wasn't entirely fair. He'd just gotten lucky and taken down a far more skilled opponent just because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Still, he wasn't complaining. $150 could pay for enough bread and butter to make Sam a sandwich every day this week and then some.  
  
The next boy brought into the ring was closer to Dean's size and weight. He was a skilled fighter as well and the match lasted longer, both of them taking serious blows and having to rest more than once. His name was Kevin. Dean knew him from school and had several classes with him. Dean ended up winning the fight, but once it was over, he shook hands with him and said, "You fight well. I didn't think a cello player would be that good."  
  
Kevin grinned right back. "I'm full of surprises," he said winking, before walking off to collect what little money he'd earned and leave.  
  
The number next to Dean's name had doubled. Now he had $300. That was enough for food for Sam, but not much else. He needed more. But was he willing or able to fight and win any more fights? That he wasn't as sure of.  
  
 _I have to try one more,_  he thought, wiping the sweat off his brow with a towel one of the other boys had gotten him in the middle of the fight with the Kevin.  _$600 will be enough for food and the air conditioning bill._  
  
"Ready to quit, Winchester?" A voice called from the crowd.  
  
Dean took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet. His legs already felt like jelly. Maybe he should just take the $300 and go home. Instead, he smirked and said, "I can take one more. I'm better than that."  
  
He was starting to wonder.  
  
The minute the other boy stepped into the ring, Dean regretted his decision. The boy was just barely bigger than him and just barely stronger and Dean wasn't sure if he could beat a boy that was almost evenly matched with him, especially when that 'almost' meant that the other boy had the advantage.  
  
Swallowing hard, Dean settled into his fighting stance, his fists held up, protecting his already bloody and bruised face.  
  
The other boy moved first and he moved fast. He hit Dean in the ribs and Dean let out a gasp of pain as he followed up with an elbow to the small of his back. Dean fell to the ground and struggling to regain his footing. Once he was up, he staggered backwards, searching for the boy, trying to gauge his next move, but the blow to his temple came out of nowhere and he saw stars. He collapsed to the dirt. He couldn't lose now! If he lost, he would only get $250 and with that amount of money, he'd only be able to buy food for Sam for a few days. He needed more than that! Sam needed more than that!  
  
He forced himself to his feet again and lobbed a punch at the boy. He couldn't stop the satisfied cry of pleasure from leaving his lips when his fist landed in the boy's abdomen, doubling him over. He wasn't prepared and the air left him in whoosh. Dean kicked him to the ground. He kicked him once more in the ribs for good measure. The crowd started counting.  
  
"10…9…8!"  
  
Stay down, Dean thought desperately. Please stay down.  
  
"…7..6..5…"  
  
He wasn't sure how much longer he could stay standing himself. If he fell over, too, it'd be a draw and with a draw he would only get the $300. He needed the $600 for Sammy.  
  
"…4…3…2.."  
  
Dean's head swam. He clutched at the wooden fence for support, willing his legs to lock in place, not buckle like they so desperately wanted to.  
  
"..1…0! Winchester wins!"  
  
Letting out a tired sigh of relief, Dean smiled and let himself be clapped on the back by the other boys, still holding on to the fence to keep from collapsing. The crowd surged around him, guiding him out of the ring as another two boys went in and another match started. Dean wondered if he had one more match in him and decided not to risk it. He had $600. That was more than he'd been betting on getting tonight. Sammy's stomach would be full for two weeks. The air conditioning would be paid for the rest of the month. They wouldn't be sweating buckets whenever they were home. He wouldn't have to worry about Sam getting heat stroke and having to be rushed to the hospital.  
  
For just this one moment, everything was right with the world.


	2. Sam

It was like an alarm clock for him.  
  
The minute the door clicked shut and Dean left the house, the monster that slept in front of the broken television set awoke. It blinked blearily before getting to its feet and making its way to the kitchen for another beer. In the small bedroom the boys' shared, the younger of the two Winchesters awoke as well. His eyes open as wide as an owl's in the darkness. He could hear the monster lumbering around outside his room. He could hear him drinking. He knew what would come eventually and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He'd tried hiding, but he was always found. He'd tried fighting back, but he'd only gotten hurt. There was nothing he could do except lie there and wait and hope that maybe, just  _maybe_  tonight the monster would collapse back into his armchair and stay there with his drink for the rest of the night. Sometimes he did, but sometimes – lots of times – he did not.  
  
Tonight was not one of the lucky nights.  
  
After several moments pacing the hallway, taking swigs from the bottle each time he passed the door to the bedroom his sons shared, he opened the door and stepped inside. Sam often thought the reason he was so drunk when he came in was because he made himself to be that way. Maybe when he was sober, he couldn't make himself act this way, but when he'd tried throwing away all of his bottles, he'd gotten hurt for that, too.  
  
Sam had learned over and over again the hard way it was best to just shut up and deal with the pain. Trying to stop it would only result in more and sometimes something worse.  
  
The monster stands in the doorway for several long minutes, taking deep heavy breaths. Sam can see his belly heaving in the moonlight that shines through the window on Dean's side of the room. Dean is gone tonight again. The monster comes in when Dean is gone. Sam wishes Dean was never gone.  
  
Finally, the monster moves into the room. He shuts the door behind him, though there's no one else in the house to come stop him or see what he'll do. Sam is facing the wall. He can't see the monster standing behind him, his breath fetid, reeking of alcohol, but he knows he's there. He can hear him undoing his belt buckle. He can hear his pants when they hit the floor. He can feel him crawl into bed next to him. He can feel his rough hands palming his crotch and he can feel a scream rising in his throat.  
  
"Stay quiet, Sammy," the monster hisses in his ear and Sam swallows his scream as pain explodes below the waist. He'd have thought that after all this time he'd be used to it, that the pain would not be as bad, but it is as bad. Every night it's the same agony and he can do nothing to stop it. He can only squeeze his eyes shut and pray it's over with quickly.  
  
The monster thrusts harder and harder, grunting a little louder each time he does it. Then he lets out one final grunt, one final long lasting grunt and Sam feels a dirty stickiness between his legs. The monster doesn't bother to clean it up. He crawls out of the bed. He pulls back on his pants. He leaves the room. He doesn't say a word.  
  
For a while, all Sam can do is lay there, shaking in the moonlight, the blankets pulled down for all the world to see his shame. Then, finally, he forces himself to sit upright. Pain shoots up through his spine, but he ignores it. He won't sleep in this filth. He goes to the bathroom and rubs his skin raw, running the rag over the dirty areas until they're pink, but they still don't feel clean. Not really. He wets another rag and brings it back to his bed with a dry towel. He cleans off the bed and puts the towel in its place. Then he crawls back into bed and tries to fall asleep.  
  
But he can't fall asleep. Not yet.  
  
The tears always come first. They pour down his cheeks and he chokes out sobs into his pillow for what feels like hours, but eventually his tired little body can't take the exhaustion of crying any longer and by the time his brother opens the door an hour later, ready to crawl into bed for a few hours before the alarm rings to wake them up for school, he fast asleep as well, snoring lightly into his pillow.  
  
Dean doesn't know what happens when he leaves the house.

* * *

The shrill ringing of the alarm clock on the nightstand, shattered the short peace sleep had been able to bring. Sam groaned, the sound pounding into his skull like a jackhammer. He reached blindly over to the nightstand and slammed a hand down on top of the alarm. Instantly, the ringing ceased. He let out a heavy breath, and, for a moment, lay against his pillows, trying not to think about the night before. But the moment he did this every detail returned in sharp clarity.  
  
He shuddered and forced himself into a sitting position, holding back the wince he wanted to let loose as he put pressure on his behind. Instead, he turned to gaze at his brother and swallowed, immediately feeling anxiousness and worry pool in his gut.  
  
For reasons unknown to all but a few at school – reasons Sam had already guessed at – the oldest Winchester brother was always covered in bruises that never seemed to really go away. The school's social worker had asked if their father beat them, but Dean had only laughed and replied with, "My dad loves his beer and television too much to waste precious time he could be doing either of those things on beating me."  
  
The truth of the matter was John Winchester _did_  beat his sons, but he did it when he knew they wouldn't be around others or in places where no one would see, and had been doing this for several years now, ever since he lost his job several years back. Before then it'd only been a slap across the face every now and then, maybe more if they did something especially bad, but it wasn't until he became unemployed and the bills started piling up that John Winchester's disciplinary clips on the back of the head became more than that.  
  
So the social worker left them alone and assumed what everyone else had already guessed at – Dean was fighting in some back alley for money late at night. The who and where of it, Sam was unsure of, but he always knew when. Those were the only nights that Dean told Sam to go to sleep, that he stayed up smoking a cigarette from one of the few packs he bought himself at the gas station down the street ever since he turned eighteen, and that no matter how hard Sam tried he could neither stay awake nor beg his brother not to leave him. He didn't know what Dean's reaction would be if he told him about the monster that visited their room the nights he wasn't there. If he couldn't see it, then, for him, it wasn't there. And that was Sam's biggest fear. That Dean wouldn't believe him.  
  
The bruises covering Dean's body this morning kept Sam's mind from thinking too much on this. They were mostly on his torso over his ribs and lower back, though there was a nasty one on his temple and he was sporting a split lip. Sam took a steadying breath, reminding himself that Dean was fine. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be here. But it was hard to convince himself of this when his brother came home night after night looking as though he'd just been hit by a bus.  
  
"Rise and shine, Sammy," Dean said, though Sam was more awake than he was. Dean was still lying on his stomach, the sheets bunched up around his waist. He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, trying to wipe the sleep from them, while Sam pushed back his own blankets and got up to tug on a pair of jeans lying on the floor.  
  
He didn't want his brother to see the bruises the monster left on him.  
  
By the time Dean was pulling on one of his many plain white t-shirts along with a plaid button up over it, Sam was dressed in a too big black hoodie with an equally too big t-shirt underneath. His dark hair was combed in front of his eyes and he was brushing his teeth in front of the mirror, pointedly avoiding his brother's gaze as he joined him in the bathroom. Dean turned on the faucet and splashed some cool water on his face.  
  
"We're going grocery shopping after school today, Sammy," he said, toweling off his face. "And we'll have the air back on tomorrow. The house'll be cool again."  
  
He said this excitedly, but Sam didn't reply. He rarely spoke anymore.  
  
Silently, he calculated the sum of each of these items in his head. Dean had made at least $450 last night if he was able to pay for their air conditioning bill along with food.  
  
Despite what he had to endure each night his brother left, a part of him was glad that Dean went to the fights. It was the only way they could get any food or pay any bills.  
  
For almost a full year after John had lost his job, the boys had been certain they were going to either become homeless or starve to death. Or both. John did nothing. He stayed in front of the television. He sold his bed to pay for the TV bill. Then he sold his nightstands. Then he sold their mother's jewelry. More than once, Dean tried to remind him that he and his brother were hungry, but this only earned him a beating, the likes of which neither of the boys had ever experienced before, so they stopped asking.  
  
Dean started begging on street corners like he saw some older people do downtown. Sometimes people were nice and gave him a few dollars and he was able to buy a candy bar to share with Sam for their dinner that night, but more often than not, he came home empty handed. Then, one night, when he was getting really desperate, he stumbled down the alley where Rufus' fighting ring was. He went inside and started fighting and got more money and he even knew what to do with. The first thing he did was buy himself and Sam as much food as he could, then he noticed the envelopes that had begun collecting on their welcome mat and knew he had to start paying off some of those, too. So he picked the important ones and went to more fights and started earning enough to support himself and Sam. He didn't bother with their father. He just sold more of their dead mother's jewelry to buy his drink and when that was gone, he would sell something else. It really didn't matter to Dean anymore.  
  
Sam didn't remember their mother like his brother did. It hadn't bothered him as badly when he'd found his father accepting drinks from a stranger and handing him pearl earrings in return. He'd been shocked when his brother had stepped up and shouted at his father, protesting those had belonged to mama and he didn't have any right to sell them.  
  
John had backhanded Dean across the face so hard, he'd staggered back several steps and fallen to the floor.  
  
"Your mother is dead, boy," he growled out. "She'd been dead for five years. What's hers is mine now and I can do whatever the fuck I want with my stuff."  
  
Dean hadn't protested again, but he'd glared at his father with tears in his eyes and he tensed up, immediately becoming like a live wire whenever he heard someone knock on the door to give their father more alcohol in exchange for what had once belonged to his mother.  
  
Sam had tried to reassure his brother, that it was just stuff, that, like their father had said, their mother was dead, put in the ground, put to rest, but Dean had only shot back, "Her stuff is all we have left of her and he's giving her away." He'd gone back to studying his math book then. "She's still here, Sammy," he'd added softly. "Don't ever let anyone tell you differently."  
  
That was when Sam had started noticing the chill in the room at the end of the hall and the way it sometimes seemed to whisper to him and he stopped going in it. He didn't like the way the room made him feel anymore.  
  
Their father was sleeping in front of the television again when the boys left their bedroom. They left the house quietly, not wanting to rouse him from his slumber and walked the short few steps to the corner where the bus would stop. The minute he stepped out the front door, Dean went from being cautious and limping slightly from pain to the bright, cheerful boy that had gotten him so popular with everyone at school except the teachers.  
  
"How's your first week back been, Sammy?" he asked jovially. "What's it like being a high schooler? As bad as you thought? Worse?"  
  
Sam gave Dean a wry smile and said softly, "It's fine, Dean. I'm doing fine."  
  
That was a lie, but it was easier to lie than tell his brother the truth.  
  
The truth was that where Dean was friends with at least someone somewhere, Sam was friendless. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had one friend who lived a couple blocks down from them with her father. Her name was Jessica Lee Moore. She had wavy golden hair that cascaded down her back to her waist, honey sweet skin with a mole in the center of her forehead, and eyes greener than the trees in summer. She smiled sweetly and spoke softly and not very much, but she seemed to be popular among the girls in school and Sam always wondered why she'd ever paid him any heed at all.  
  
Sam'd had a crush on her for over a year now.  
  
She had a monster that visited her room during the night as well, but Sam still hadn't told her about his own.  
  
The two other boys they waited with were already there. They incidentally happened to be Dean's best friends as well. Dean had been lucky. There were two other boys his age on his street and they'd grown up together. Sam hadn't been that lucky. He felt lucky to have the few snatches of conversation he got with Jess. He watched as Dean shook hands with Benny and clapped Cas on the back. They started talking about something he didn't understand.  
  
Sam leaned against the metal street sign. He scuffed his shoes at the dirt in the grass around it. He wondered what it would be like to have a friend whose house he could go over to, to spend the night at or just stay for dinner or work on homework in their living room. He wondered what it would be like to have a friend he could always count on to be able to sit next to at lunch. He wondered what it would be like to have a friend he could tell everything to. Even about the monster. He could almost tell Jess, but Jess already had a lot on her plate.  
  
Sam didn't think she knew he'd seen the scars she'd been making on the insides of her wrists, but he had.  
  
He knew what they meant.  
  
They learned about that in health class last year. It was what someone did when they were really sad and couldn't let their sadness out any other way.  
  
It made sense to him. He couldn't ever remember having seen Jess cry except once and that'd been the time she'd told him about her own monster and then made him swear not to tell anyone else.  
  
He hadn't.  
  
The sound of the bus letting out the steam for its breaks made Sam look up. He got in line behind Dean to get on and sat down next to Jess while Dean went to sit with his friends in the back. He always sat with her on the bus and sometimes at lunch, but other than that, they didn't really speak. Maybe they weren't really friends.  
  
"Hi, Sam."  
  
Jess's voice made Sam's cheeks heat up and he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, smiling slightly. "Hi, Jess," he said back.  
  
"How was your night last night?" she asked, tucking a long strand of golden hair behind her ear. Sam wondered what it felt like. He had to resist the impulse to run his fingers through it.  
  
He thought of Dean leaving, of the monster coming into his room, into his bed. He swallowed hard. "Not good," he replied, quickly looking away. He didn't want Jess to know just how bad 'not good' meant.  
  
"Oh," she said, sounding a little put out. "I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
She placed her hand on top of his. Sam wanted to lace their fingers together like he'd seen the other couples do at school, but he didn't know if Jess would approve of this. Instead, he forced a smile onto his face and looked up into her vivid green eyes to say, "No, but thanks."  
  
The smile came back to her face. It lit up her features completely. "Yeah, of course."  
  
They didn't talk much more on the ride to school. Sam watched other kids get on and either sit in the seats with their friends close to the front if they were younger students or in the back if they were older or more popular. He could hear Dean's raucous laugh all the way from his seat in the front. He wanted to turn around and see what was so funny that made his brother laugh. He wanted to see the looks on the faces of everyone else and wonder if they were worried about his split lip and blackened eye like Sam was, but he didn't. He kept his gaze focused on the world whizzing by outside the window.  
  
Jess did the same.  
  
Too soon the bus pulled up to the school's curb and opened its doors and everyone spilled out, heading towards their lockers to grab the books they would need for their first classes of the day. One of the seniors didn't miss the chance to hit Sam upside the head and snickering as they walked away with their friends. He didn't see who the person was. He headed towards the front doors of the school, rubbing the spot on the back of his head.  
  
"I'll see you at lunch, Sam."  
  
Jess's voice wafted through the cacophony of the crowd to his ears. He looked up and watched her skip up the stairs. She was wearing a short blue plaid skirt and a woolen pale blue sweater. Her hair was down, but there was a headband parting the golden waves. She waved to him as she skipped up the steps to the school's front doors.  
  
Sam couldn't stop the smile that this brought to his lips.  
  
He was going to see Jessica Lee Moore and her beautiful green eyes and her gorgeous golden hair at lunch today. That was only four hours away. He could last four hours. Maybe this day wouldn't be too horrible after all.


	3. Dean

Dean had never understood the choice of a janitor's closet for the protagonist to kiss his paramour within in a typical teenage romance movie until he reached high school. It wasn't because they were romantic or roomy or warm, even. They were just convenient. Always unlocked, never checked by teachers for missing students, and easily lit.  
  
That was where he was now.  
  
Being the golden boy of the school, despite not belonging to any significant clubs or sports teams, had many upsides. One of them was every pretty girl that walked in the door was more than willing to say 'yes' when Dean Winchester asked her to meet him outside the janitor's closet on the third floor before fourth period.  
  
He would like to say he remembered the names of each of the girl's he'd asked to spend a few minutes with in the closet, but he didn't. They were all faceless, nameless beauties to him. This one had dark hair and olive skin. Her name was Lisa Braeden. She was one of the few Dean remembered and one of the few Dean had asked to meet him in the closet more than just once.  
  
But today was different than every other day they'd met.  
  
For one, she wasn't currently kissing him. She was talking. And he'd long since learned with girls that was never a good thing.  
  
"I don't want to keep doing this, Dean," she was saying. "I know you bring other girls in here. I know I'm not really anything special to you. You just like a distraction in between classes when fighting at night in back allies isn't enough for you."  
  
"That's not true," he replied instantly, though it was. Every word. Well, almost every word.  
  
Lisa meant marginally more to him than the other girls did.  
  
"Yeah, it is," she said, straightening the white sweater she was wearing and pushing down her red plaid skirt. Skirts and sweaters seemed to be the fashion this fall. "If I'm going to keep doing this with you, I want to do it properly and not in a fucking  _janitor's_ closet. I want to be your girlfriend. I want to be able to kiss you and know you haven't been kissing anybody else. I want to be able to kiss you in front of your friends and your brother and have you be proud that it's just me you're kissing."  
  
Dean bit his lip.  
  
He'd never had a girlfriend before.  
  
Well, that wasn't true. He'd had plenty of girlfriends, but they were all flings, girls he'd picked up and dropped after only a week or two, and Lisa knew that. He could tell from the way she was looking at him now.  
  
She didn't want to be that.  
  
She wanted something real.  
  
Was he prepared for that?  
  
"I don't know…" he said honestly. He  _didn't_  know. An adult relationship was a lot to commit to at eighteen, especially with the things he had on his plate.  
  
And an adult relationship would mean _telling_  her everything, wouldn't it? He couldn't do that. He couldn't tell her the reason that he fought was to get money so Sammy could eat, so he could have a cool house in the summer. He couldn't tell her that their father was a drunk that liked to hit his boys around the house sometimes. He couldn't tell her that the ghost of their mother lingered in the bedroom down at the end of the hall.  
  
What would she think of him if he told her  _any_  of that?  
  
Come to think of it, why did he care what she thought to begin with? He'd never given a damn about what any girl thought about or said about him before, but with Lisa it seemed to matter. A lot.  
  
Lisa let out a huff, bringing Dean out of his thoughts. She moved around him in the tiny enclosed space to the door. "Well, let me know when you  _do_  know, okay?"  
  
She sounded angry.  
  
Dean opened his mouth to say something to stop her from leaving, but nothing left his lips-and before he knew it, he was alone in the janitor's closet. Something that had never happened before. He knew he could just go up to another pretty girl once the bell rang and ask her to meet him here and she'd do it in an instant, but for some reason what Lisa said hit something inside him.  
  
The thought of being able to go up to her and kiss her in the hallways and know she wasn't kissing any other boys except him was a nice thought. It was a nicer thought that she could hang out with him and Benny and Cas sometimes. It was an even nicer thought still that Sammy might like her and want to hang out with them, too. Sammy was always so shut in, maybe if he brought a girl around, Sam would open up and show himself to the world. Maybe then he'd have some friends to hang out with, too.  
  
Dean let out a heavy sigh and rested his forehead against one of the shelves full of different detergents and cleaners. He closed his eyes and let his arms hang heavy at his sides.  
  
Why did Lisa make him want to be faithful to only one girl rather than just lose her forever and have someone new every week or every day if he felt like it? She was certainly prettier and funnier and smarter and just plain  _different_  from every other girl that he'd ever asked to come make out with him in the janitor's closet, but there was something else, too. She had something else that none of the other girls had and Dean couldn't put his finger on it.  
  
He pushed himself up off the shelf and went back to class. He'd been gone far longer than it took for a bathroom break, but his teachers had stopped trying to keep him in line, knowing that phone calls home, multiple detentions, or even threats of expulsion weren't going to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. Despite not going to every class, despite leaving in the middle of the ones he even bothered to attend, and despite never seeming to turn in his homework, Dean aced all his tests, read every book assigned for English class, and knew the History textbooks by heart. He was a quandary to every teacher that had ever taught him and he liked keeping it that way. Then they had nothing to threaten him with.  
  
Typically, Dean paid attention in class, if only marginally, but it was enough for him to get what the teachers were saying and, even if it wasn't, every year was really just a repeat of the year before with slightly different courses. If you'd gone through elementary school, you already knew everything you needed to know for middle and high school as well.  
  
Twirling his pencil between his thumb and forefinger, Dean continued to think about Lisa. He didn't want to admit to himself that he liked her more than he liked any girl he kissed or any girl he'd ever kissed, but that was the truth. He liked her a lot and maybe having something real with her was the right thing to do. And what if this was the only chance he got? What if some other guy took her later? He didn't want this opportunity to be something he regretted for the rest of his life. He'd heard of those. He'd seen those. He lived with one.  
  
The bell rang and Dean slowly gathered up his belongings along with the rest of the class.  
  
The only problem was every other problem in his life.  
  
His living situation being the main one. His fighting being another. He had a feeling Lisa would want him to quit and he couldn't not quit and keep her without explaining why he had to keep fighting, why he'd started fighting to begin with.  
  
He still wasn't sure he wanted to do that.  
  
Dean Winchester was the most beautiful boy in school. He'd kissed every girl at least once. He'd slept with half of those girls. He got great grades despite never paying attention in class and only attending when he felt like it. He fought other boys in back allies late at night because he enjoyed it not because he was dirt poor and he certainly didn't have a father that beat him and his brother when he didn't have enough to drink.  
  
Maybe Lisa only liked the image he put on and if that was the case, there was no relationship to be had with her. Nor any other girl in this school for that matter. Because that was what they were all infatuated with. His image. Not what lay behind.  
  
 _Maybe Lisa's not like all the rest of them,_  he thought to himself, leaving the classroom and heading towards his fifth period class. _Maybe she does want to see what's behind my mask and maybe she won't care if she finds out the truth. Maybe she'll still like me for who I am._  
  
But it was a long shot and Dean wasn't sure just yet if he was willing to take it.  
  
That was why when he saw a pretty redheaded girl, freckles all across her nose and cheeks, in the hall talking to another boy, he walked up behind her. He gave a crooked smile and was about to tell her to wait five minutes into class to meet him on the third floor, but then movement caught his eye on the stairwell.  
  
He saw Lisa standing there, students rushing around her, staring at him.  
  
He stared back. She had her arms full of books. She was heading to class, but there was a look in her eye, one that told him if he did this, he was going to lose her forever. He had to abstain from other girls while he thought about a relationship with her, too.  
  
And, if truth be told, he was still thinking.  
  
"Dean?" the girl standing next to him made him blink and look away. Her face was hopeful, like she already knew what he was going to ask. "Is there something you wanted to say to me?"  
  
Dean looked at the girl. She really was very pretty. She was wearing a pale green sweater and plaid green skirt. There was a matching green bow in her vibrant red hair. More skirts and sweaters. But it looked different on her than it did on Lisa. And he wanted Lisa. Not this girl.  
  
He smiled at her. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I forgot what I was going to say."  
  
He left without a backwards glance, but he hoped Lisa saw the disappointed look that, no doubt, crossed the girl's features, but when he looked back to the stairwell, she wasn't there anymore. She'd disappeared into the crowd of students rushing to class.  
  
Dean sat down in his seat at his next class just as the bell was ringing.  
  
"Mr. Winchester!" the teacher said. He was a portly man that looked like he'd hopped out of a science cartoon rather than a flesh and blood being. "You've actually decided to join us today! What activities are you missing out on?"  
  
Everyone in the class tittered politely, but no one really laughed  _at_  Dean Winchester. They laughed  _with_  him.  
  
Dean smiled good-naturedly and said with more honesty than he'd ever thought he would, "Nothing of importance. This is where I wanted to be today."  
  
The teacher smiled back. The expression seemed genuine. "I'm glad to hear it."  
  
He turned his back on the class to start explaining the day's lesson, but Dean's mind was far from the classroom. He was thinking about a dark haired girl with olive skin in the classroom beneath his, learning proper grammar and English that she probably already knew, and wondering if maybe he could let everything go, he could take off his mask, he could show her who he was behind every façade he put up when he was at school.  
  
What he was truly wondering was if maybe, just maybe he could be with her.


	4. Sam

As a whole, school was not quite the experience for Sam Winchester as it was for Dean Winchester. While everyone loved and practically worshipped the older of the two Winchester boys, the younger they went out of their way to treat exactly the opposite.  
  
Ever since he'd been in elementary school, Sam had been no stranger to gangs jumping him on the playground, getting his things stolen when he used the bathroom during class, having various unsavory items placed in his locker, and a whole list of other things that he could never complete even if he tried to write it down.  
  
No one told Dean how they treated Sam. Why would they? They knew how much Dean loved his little brother. He bragged about him to anyone who would listen – or pretend to anyway – and, while they smiled and nodded and pretended that they cared about what Dean was saying, this was the one bit of information from the Prince of the High School that went in one ear of the student body and out the other.  
  
Though the physical abuse was horrible and not fun to deal with, Sam was used to it. He got it at home, too, and, avoiding it at school, though harder, was doable, and even if he couldn't, it wasn't like this was anything new for him.  
  
It was the people that pretended to be nice to him and whispered behind his back that were the worst.  
  
He didn't know who to trust. He didn't know who wanted to be his friend and who was just pretending and who had been dared to try to befriend the weird, ugly, stupid younger Winchester.  
  
Sam was none of these things, of course. He got better grades than his older brother. He was quiet and kept mostly to himself, doing exactly what everyone else did, just without speaking. And the few girls who did look at Sam more than the one time their friends pointed him out as the kid no one likes, kept it to themselves. Anyone who associated with Sam got the same treatment he did. Freaks flocked together, right? And so Sam was friendless, unhappy, and always waiting for the school day to end so he could go sit in his room and do his homework.  
  
Home wasn't much better than school. Not by a long shot. Especially not with the monster that visited him on the nights Dean went to fights. But there were stretches of silence and times when Sam was alone or in only Dean's company rather than the company of his friends or the rest of the school, and though these moments were often brief and sometimes few and far between, Sam would take a life locked in his room over the constant harassment he received at the hands of his peers any day of the week.  
  
The worst time of day was lunch.  
  
At least in the classrooms, there was some supervision. Kids didn't dare bully Sam too much in front of teachers. Sure, they'd throw spitballs when their teacher's back was turned or get to class early and put something gross on his seat or desktop or write something rude on it, but they didn't dare do anything drastic. They didn't dare cuff him upside the head, drag him into the bathroom to dunk his head in the toilet, or pull his pants down in front of everyone during class.  
  
At lunch, it was different.  
  
Supervision was minimal and all of those things had happened to Sam during his lunch hours and more. The most common occurrence was for one of the other students to run into him, trip him, or tip his tray over after he'd paid for it in line, anything to make his food go splattering all over the floor. They knew the Winchesters weren't well off and Sam couldn't afford to get himself another tray of food. They knew Sam was too shy to tell the lunch ladies what had happened and even if he did, there was no guarantee they'd believe him or let him get another lunch free. So the days this happened, he had to go hungry, and, though Dean worked hard to keep at least  _something_  edible in their refrigerator just in case of emergencies, there was always the chance his brother wouldn't have gotten enough money for food at his last fight, and Sam wouldn't be able to eat at all that day.  
  
The hallways were similar to the lunch room. Unsupervised, anything could happen, but the time between classes was short enough that the most that usually happened was Sam would get tripped and his books would go flying all across the hall, making him late or almost late for class. This he could deal with. But he'd give just about anything to be able to take a lunch from home and eat with the older kids outside.  
  
The bell for the end of fifth period rang and Sam let out a heavy sigh.  
  
He gathered up his books as slowly as he could manage. If he was the last kid left in the classroom, there was less of a chance that someone would try to trip him on his way out. It wasn't until there were only a couple girls, whispering to each other behind their hands, still in the room, that he hurried out.  
  
Just as he had in the classroom, he took his time at his locker, putting his books away slowly and carefully, trying to take up as much time as possible. He was hungry, but the fewer people there were in line, the more likely he'd be able to eat lunch today.  
  
Finally, when he couldn't linger in the hall any longer without it looking like he was stalling, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and headed to the lunchroom, keeping his head down. Sometimes if he made himself smaller, no one noticed him. He was short and skinny and wore clothes too big for him. It was hard to notice Sam Winchester unless you were looking for him, which, unfortunately, some people were.  
  
"Where do you think you're going,  _Sammy_?"  
  
Sam didn't dare look over his shoulder to see who was jeering at him, using the nickname his brother had given him and used around everyone, no matter who they were. Well, why wouldn't he? He didn't know how everyone enjoyed tormenting his younger brother and Sam wasn't about to be the one to tell him. Dean had looked nearly heartbroken the one time he'd mentioned he didn't really have any friends.  
  
Though his pace to the cafeteria quickened, he knew it didn't matter. There were more of them than there were of him and, though he was able to walk through the doors of the cafeteria unharmed, that didn't mean he would remain so once inside.  
  
He tried to go through the line slowly, lingering back and letting more and more people get ahead of him as though he were still trying to choose what to eat. The truth was Sam didn't care. He'd learned long ago not to be picky about what he put in his stomach. If he were, he might not get anything in his stomach at all. That being said, he did prefer a vegetarian diet in comparison with the carnivorous one Dean and every other boy his age seemed to enjoy.  
  
Finally having picked out a salad that was already put together and packaged, Sam grabbed a fork and a packet of ranch dressing before going to pay for his lunch at one of the open registers. The lady barely looked at him as he typed in his lunch number. He didn't look at her once.  
  
It was as he was turning from the woman, his lunch secured firmly in his fingers, it happened. He took a step and then he was falling. He hit the floor hard, rattling his teeth and jarring his entire being. He lay on the linoleum tiles for a moment, watching his salad skid across the cafeteria floor, toppled over. It didn't open. It was taped shut. Thank God for little miracles. But there was no guarantee he would get to it before his assailants had.  
  
Shaking himself, Sam staggered to his feet, amid the laughter of other students. He grabbed his fork and packet of ranch dressing, which he'd also dropped and made a dive for the salad before the boy who'd tripped him had a chance to close his own fingers around it.  
  
The boy towered over him. Sam didn't look up into his face. He wished he had the courage to, to look up at him and tell him what he really thought about him. Or glare at the very least.  
  
"What'd you do that for, Gabriel?"  
  
The voice made Sam whirl around and the few titters still going around him quiet.  
  
Jess was standing there, her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed into angry green slits. Her hair was wild around her and looked more like cloud mass that was going to crackle with thunder than the soft golden waves it had this morning on the bus.  
  
People were staring at her in shock. Including Sam.  
  
"Oh, c'mon, Jess," the boy named, Gabriel, said, sounding half-annoyed, half-joking. "If it wasn't me, it would've been somebody else."  
  
"It shouldn't be  _any_ body," Jess replied. "And, for the record, it usually is you."  
  
Sam swallowed, pressing his lips into a thin line to keep himself from speaking. Now that she mentioned it, the name Gabriel sounded familiar. So did the boy's voice and stature. He never looked into the faces of his bullies. If he kept them faceless, it was a little easier to deal with. It was like they were demons or maybe ghosts, like the one in the bedroom at the end of the hall at home. As bad as it sounded, if he tried to think of them as something other than human, it made their actions easier to justify.  
  
"Come on, Sam," Jess said, pulling him out of his thoughts. "You can come sit with me."  
  
Wordlessly, Sam walked away from Gabriel, still clutching his salad, reeling from what just happened. No one had ever stood up for him before. Not even Jess. She'd never joined in the teasing, but she'd never tried to stop it either. He didn't blame her for that. Anyone who did, usually ended up getting the same treatment, but Jess seemed to hold some sway over his bullies that he was unaware of.  
  
"I'm sorry about him," she said, tossing her hair back from her face as she sat down at the lunch table she'd led Sam to. He noticed people were continually turning to look at them. He busied himself with opening his salad and starting to eat. "I'm also sorry I haven't done anything about him before."  
  
He looked up. Jess was looking at him. Her green eyes were sad. They were always sad in one way or another, but right now they looked especially sorrowful, though the word he would've used was guilty.  
  
"I should've stood up for you before," she said softly, stabbing at the food on her plate. She'd gotten the main course of the day – macaroni and cheese with a side of green beans and a brownie for dessert. "People are just so  _mean_  and I don't have any excuse. People won't bother me. I don't know why. But I know that's why other people don't stand up for you. They get bullied back. But I don't, so I don't have any excuse. Maybe I'm just a coward."  
  
Sam shook his head.  
  
Jess looked up at him, smiling wryly. "You don't think so?"  
  
Sam shook his head again.  
  
"Well, I'm glad you think I'm better than I actually am," she replied.  
  
The smile she gave him was a genuine one. It made his heart feel lighter and brought a small smile to his own lips.  
  
They were quiet for a little bit, eating in companionable silence, until Jess broke it by saying, "Why don't you talk very much?"  
  
He swallowed all of what was in his mouth from the surprise of the question.  
  
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask. It's none of my business and I guess that's a stupid question to ask someone who doesn't talk. Why would you expect them to tell you?" She sighed and Sam paused in stabbing his salad.  
  
"No one listens to what I have to say."  
  
Jess looked up in surprise that he'd answered her, but after a moment nodded. "No, I guess they don't, do they?" she replied softly. "I probably wouldn't talk much either if that's how everyone made me feel. Does your brother make you feel that way, too?"  
  
Sam shrugged one shoulder. "Only at school, but I understand it."  
  
"How come?"  
  
He didn't answer. He couldn't tell her everything. She had a monster like his, yes, but what if she thought differently of him if he told her about his? What if she thought differently of him if she knew what living at his house was  _really_ like? Dean probably made it sound so perfect. Or maybe he just made it _look_  that way.  
  
Either way, he couldn't tell her the truth. Not yet. Maybe not ever.  
  
The bell rang, signaling the end of their lunch hour.  
  
Jess sighed and looked down at her food. "I wasn't finished yet. Oh well. I'll have a snack when I get home. You can just take yours with you if you put the lid back on."  
  
She did it for him without prompting. Then they both got up and walked out of the cafeteria together. She stayed with him all the way to his locker where he put the rest of his salad into his backpack and grabbed the books he'd need for his last two classes of the day.  
  
"I'd like to eat lunch with you again sometime, Sam," Jess said softly as he was closing his locker, about ready to turn away from her.  
  
He turned back to her. She was staring at her hands. She was digging at something under her nails as though she was trying to find a reason not to look him in the eye, almost as though she was afraid to.  
  
Finally, she did look up. "Would you like to eat lunch with me again tomorrow?"  
  
Sam smiled for the third time that day and nodded.  
  
It was worth it just to see the way she smiled back at him.  
  
"Oh good! I'll meet you here after my fifth period class tomorrow then, okay?"  
  
Sam nodded again and she skipped away down the hall, swallowed up by the crowd.  
  
It didn't matter that he had two more classes and that those classes were his least favorite. It didn't matter that in those classes, he'd probably get picked on or bullied in some way. It didn't matter that everyone at school bullied him, even. In fact, in that moment, it didn't even matter that there was a monster that lived in his house wearing the skin of his father or a ghost of the mother he'd never met in the master bedroom.  
  
Jessica Lee Moore wanted to eat lunch with him, Sam Winchester, the short, skinny younger brother of Dean Winchester that no one liked. She could have chosen anyone in the entire school, she could have asked any boy to eat lunch with her. She could have asked his brother, but she hadn't. She'd asked him.  
  
For the first time in his life, Sam felt lucky.  
  
 _You're no longer the kid no one likes,_  he thought to himself as he sat down in his sixth period class.  _Jessica Lee Moore likes you._  
  
And Jessica Lee Moore was the only one that mattered.


	5. Dean

Never in his before in his life had Dean felt more on his toes than he did the next day, standing at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to come pick himself, Sam, Benny, and Cas up. He talked little, he smiled little and, though his friends asked him several times what was wrong, he lied through his teeth and told them that everything was fine.  
  
The night before, he'd been up again, staring at the ceiling while he smoked a cigarette, wearing only a pair of jeans, his sheets bunched up at the end of his bed, but he hadn't been waiting to go to a fight.  
  
He'd been thinking.  
  
There hadn't been many points in his life when he'd considered dropping everything in favor of one person and the times that  _had_ happened, that person had been Sam. Now he was thinking of doing so for someone outside of his family.  
  
Lisa Braeden.  
  
The words she'd spoken to him in the janitor's closet earlier that day kept rattling around in his mind, repeating themselves over and over again, until it was like he'd put a song on repeat and, now that he was sick of it, couldn't figure out how to undo the action.  
  
 _I want to be your girlfriend. I want to be able to kiss you and know you haven't been kissing anybody else. I want to be able to kiss you in front of your friends and your brother and have you be proud that it's just me you're kissing._  
  
Dean would be proud to just be kissing her. He would be proud to show her off to Benny and Cas and everyone else at school. He'd love to be able to call her his girlfriend and have other boys and girls look at them in envy, wishing they were one or the other of them. He didn't even want to be known as Dean Winchester, the Prince of the High School anymore. He wanted to be known as Dean Winchester, Lisa Braeden's boyfriend.  
  
But what he wanted wasn't the issue here. It wasn't the reason he was up so late, smoking and thinking and wondering if accepting her offer of a relationship was really a good idea.  
  
It was everything that no one saw that came with being in a relationship.  
  
How would he explain the state of their living situation to her when she asked to come over for dinner? How would he explain to her that he couldn't stop fighting when she inevitably asked him to? She was a nice girl. She'd expect nice things and maybe he didn't deserve her because he wasn't sure he could give her them.  
  
Letting out a heavy sigh, Dean had stubbed out his cigarette in the tin can sitting on his window sill. The company had told him the air wouldn't be back on until tomorrow afternoon when he'd called them on the phone after school that day, so it was still wide open, letting in the occasional cool breeze that made sleeping in this room bearable. He'd shucked off his jeans and let them fall to the floor before pulling the sheets up to his waist. He'd left the blankets bunched up at the bottom of the bed.  
  
Tomorrow he had to make some sort of decision. Yes or no. He had to come down on one side or the other. Lisa said to "let her know" when he came to a decision and he had a feeling she wasn't a patient woman and didn't want to be kept waiting. She hadn't said it, but he had one day to figure everything out.  
  
By the time he got to school tomorrow, he'd promised himself, he would.  
  
Now it was tomorrow and he was still as clueless as he had been when he'd been falling asleep the night before.  
  
Was Lisa Braeden really worth the potential heartbreak he would feel if she didn't approve of who Dean Winchester  _really_  was?  
  
A part of him boomed out a resounding  _yes_.  
  
Another part of him replied with an equally potent no.  
  
And now there was only a bus ride during which he had to decide whether or not he was going to become her boyfriend.  
  
There was always the chance everything would turn out fine, that she'd find out what his life was like and wouldn't care, but Dean felt the chances of that happening were slim. He'd hidden the truth about his and Sam's life so well that he felt anyone would be unpleasantly shocked if he told them even a fraction of what was truly fiction and what was their reality.  
  
It was far too soon for Dean's liking that the bus was pulling up to the front of the school. Everyone seemed to get off before him. He took his time, trying to pull the words together in his mind to come up with some sort of definitive sentence, but all that he could think of was what he'd told her the day before.  
  
 _I don't know…_  
  
And that wasn't good enough.  
  
To his abject horror, Lisa was standing at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the school, her bag slung over her shoulder. She was looking around and the minute she saw him, her eyes locked with his. He knew she'd been looking for him and that his suspicions had been correct.  
  
She expected her answer today.  
  
Dean tried to walk slowly over to her, to give himself more time to think, but when she noticed how long he was taking, she moved away from the steps and met him halfway. Her arms were crossed over her chest. He noticed she was wearing a white sweater and a pair of blue jeans with All Stars sneakers today. She still looked beautiful.  
  
"Well?" she said without preamble.  
  
Dean opened his mouth and, without really thinking, without even really knowing what he was going to say, replied with, "Yes."  
  
The silence that ensued afterwards between the two of them was one of the worst Dean had ever been a part of. The only other he could think of that had been worse than this one was the one that filled his tiny, dirty living room the day a pair of policemen knocked on the door, telling him that his mother had been killed in a car crash.  
  
Then, suddenly, Lisa started laughing. For a moment, Dean thought he'd been had, that she'd asked him out as a joke or a prank and that the fun for her had been making him think this hard about dating her and then seeing his reaction now, but then she did something else that made that thought go out the window.  
  
Standing on her tiptoes, Lisa Braeden kissed him.  
  
Everyone around them saw. He knew they saw her place her hands on his cheeks and pull his mouth down to hers. He knew they saw his stunned expression, his eyes wide open, still unsure as to how to react to everything that was happening. And he knew they saw him finally relax into the kiss, close his eyes, and place his hands on her hips.  
  
He still wasn't sure he'd made the right choice, but when they broke apart, people around them cheered and clapped.  
  
That's what happens when you're the prince of the high school and you get a girlfriend.  
  
Lisa smiled up at him and laced their fingers together, tugging him towards the school.  
  
"Do we have to?" he asked, only half-joking. "Can't we just…go do something else?"  
  
"We can," she said, surprising him. " _After_ school. There's a nice '50's diner around here. How about  _I_  take  _you_  out?"  
  
Dean smiled and pulled her to him, kissing her again. He liked being able to do this.  
  
"That sounds like a great idea."  
  
At least it did until three o'clock rolled around.  
  
By then, Dean's nerves were amped up again.  
  
He spent his entire last class, fidgeting in his desk, tapping his pencil impatiently against his books, and checking the clock every three seconds, wondering why the minute hand hadn't moved since the last time he'd looked.  
  
What was Lisa going to want to talk about on their date? What if she wanted to get into the deep questions right away? Maybe it would be good to get that out of the way right off the bat. Then he'd know right away what part of him she was interested in and, if she wanted to break it off, it wouldn't hurt as much as it might later on.  
  
By the time the bell rang, he'd come up with a thousand different ways of explaining to Lisa what his life was truly like and didn't bother lingering back in class to talk to his friends like he usually did. He was out of his desk and headed towards his locker so fast, someone might've thought the classroom was on fire.  
  
Dean had almost gotten his locker opened when he realized: Sam didn't know where he was going this afternoon and would wonder where he was if he didn't come home on the bus. Even when he hadn't had a girlfriend, he'd always told his little brother where he was going and what he was doing. It was almost as though he were trying to make Sam keep him responsible by knowing where he was and what he was going to be doing, but, in reality, he just liked  _someone_  in their house caring enough to _want_  to know where he was if he wasn't home. He knew if he  _didn't_  tell Sam, he'd probably just assume he was with a girl, but there was no guarantee and he didn't want his brother worrying unnecessarily, so, after grabbing his backpack and what he'd need for homework out of his locker, he pushed through the halls in search of his little brother.  
  
Unlike the vast majority of other high schools, this one had their lockers sorted on each floor by year. Freshmen were in the basement, sophomores on the first floor, juniors on the second floor, and seniors on the third floor. Everyone thought the sophomores had it the easiest, but there were advantages to each locker location.  
  
Still, Dean had to fight his way down to the basement to get there while everyone else was trying to get out and on their buses or to their cars, so they could get home. Sam was one of those people and his brother jumped nearly a foot in the air when Dean grabbed the sleeve of his black hoodie and pulled him to the side of the rush of the crowd.  
  
"Dean," Sam said softly, his voice barely audible above the students rushing around them. "Is something wrong?"  
  
For a moment, Dean was confused. Why would Sam think something was wrong? Then it occurred to him he'd never come to get him before, so it would make sense that he would automatically assume the worst. He shook his head and replied, "No, everything's fine. Great actually. Listen, I've got a date with Lisa Braeden after school today, so I'm going to go home with her and I'll see you later, okay? If you need me, I'll have my phone on."  
  
Though they could barely afford to eat, Dean had gotten himself and Sam cheap cell phones for when they were separated to use in case of emergencies.  
  
Sam nodded, but looked apprehensive.  
  
"What?" Dean asked.  
  
"I just –" but Sam stopped abruptly and shook his head. "It's nothing. I'll see you later."  
  
Sam turned to go, but Dean grabbed his sleeve again, making him turn back to him, now feeling worried and confused. "Sammy, what is it?"  
  
"Dean, it's nothing. Really. Okay? I'll see you when you get home."  
  
Dean nodded. He didn't completely believe his brother, but he was sure Sam would tell him if something were truly, horribly wrong. And he had to get going anyway. He didn't know how long Lisa would wait at her locker or her car or wherever she was going to be before she'd thought he'd stood her up. He gave Sam and smile and turned on his heel, hurrying back up to the main level and going out the front doors.  
  
Lisa was standing by her car, watching the sea of students surging from the school, looking for him now like she had been this morning. The thought that she was looking for him and was therefore excited to see him made Dean smile.  
  
"Hey," he was saying breathlessly two minutes later when he was standing in front of her. He took a moment to kiss her, knowing full well that everyone who was currently leaving the building could see him do it, before he pulled back and added, "Ready to go?"  
  
She smiled. "I was just waiting on you."  
  
He couldn't stop himself from grinning back. "Let's go, then," he said, moving away from her and walking around to the driver's side of the car.  
  
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, suddenly sounding angry and accusatory.  
  
Dean froze and looked up at her.  
  
Lisa had put her hands on her hips and fixed him with a withering glare. "I'm driving."  
  
Without replying, he moved back to the passenger's side of the car. Her tone left no room for argument and, though he liked being the one to drive, no matter whose car they were using, whenever he took a girl out, he found that he didn't mind Lisa insisted she take that place. In fact, he kind of enjoyed it.  
  
The drive from the high school to the small diner in downtown Lawrence wasn't a very long one. There weren't many other food places around the school and, it was for this reason more than any other, it tended to be the hangout of most of the students. It was a small building, painted a bright yellow with a matching awning hanging from the roof that was striped yellow, orange, olive green, and white. There were large windows on the front façade that looked into the dining area, though this was obscured by equally large white curtains.  
  
Lisa parked her car in the small lot that surrounded the diner and got out without waiting for Dean. He had to half run to keep up with her quick pace. He only just reached the door before her and didn't miss the opportunity to hold the door open for her. She gave him a wry smile.  
  
"I can get the door on my own, Winchester," she said.  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. "I know you can open the door, Braeden," he replied, "I'm just trying to be a nice guy."  
  
"I'm not sure that's a good look on you," she shot back, but they were both smiling as they stepped into the diner and up to the hostess pedestal near the door. There was a small waiting area with chairs and couches that looked like they belonged in the 50s as well as a TV that also appeared to be trapped in the past with The King and I playing on the small screen.  
  
A girl dressed in a poodle skirt, her hair tied up in a ponytail and a smile on her face came up to the pedestal.  
  
"Table for two?" she asked brightly, grabbing two menus from a shelf in the pedestal.  
  
"Yes, please," Lisa said before Dean could even open his mouth.  
  
"Alright!" the girl replied. "Right this way!"  
  
She led them to a small booth near the back of the diner. Once they sat down, she handed them the menus, put two napkins with silverware rolled up inside on the Formica tabletop, and said, "Tina will be your server and she'll be with you shortly!" before skipping away.  
  
"She's really peppy," Dean said, wiping some crumbs off the table.  
  
"I think she's nice," Lisa replied from behind her menu.  
  
Dean smiled slightly at her. "If you're going to disagree with everything I say, why did you want me to come out with you to begin with?"  
  
"Because," Lisa put her menu down, "you can be a really great guy when you try to be."  
  
She looked up at him, no longer smiling, and there was something in her eyes that made him uncomfortable, almost as though she knew more than she was letting on. He was half tempted to ask her what it was she knew – or thought she knew – and convince her she was wrong, but he had a feeling she wouldn't buy into his lies as easily as the rest of the world did. That was why she could see through him already, but he wasn't going to admit defeat. He wasn't going to let her know that he even suspected she'd cracked the code that was his mind.  
  
Before the conversation could go any further on that subject, he said, "Do you want to share a milkshake? They're really good here, but I never finish one by myself."  
  
She laughed. "I find that hard to believe. I've seen you eat your weight in the nasty cafeteria food at school. How can you not drink all of your own milkshake?"  
  
He found himself grinning as he replied, "I don't like ice cream that much."  
  
She opened her eyes wide in mock horror. "How can you not like ice cream?!"  
  
He shrugged, digging his finger in the groove that ran through the center of the table. "I don't know. I've just never really enjoyed it. Sammy loves it, though. He'd eat it all the time if he could. It's the one thing that's high in sugar he actually enjoys."  
  
When he looked up again, Lisa was leaning on the table towards him, smiling. She looked happier than he'd seen her since they'd arrived at the restaurant.  
  
"What?" he asked.  
  
She shrugged. "I don't know," she replied softly. "Your face just kind of…lights up whenever you talk about your brother. It's really sweet."  
  
Dean stopped digging at the groove in the table with his thumbnail and leaned on the edge of the table as well. Their faces were only a couple of inches apart. "I've never understood that," he said, his voice also soft, "why girls think it's so cute I love Sam so much."  
  
Lisa shrugged again. "Not many people care that much about their siblings."  
  
He smiled and placed his hand on her cheek. "I'm sorry to hear that."  
  
She leaned into his touch. "Yeah," she said, "me too."  
  
He kissed her tenderly, moving his hand back into the ends of her hair.  
  
"Eh-ehm."  
  
They split apart instantly. It was almost like they were back in the janitor's closet and someone had walked in on them, but they weren't in nearly that much trouble. There was a woman, wearing exactly what the girl who had seated them was wearing with only one difference, the smile on her face looked forced and she seemed more than a little disgusted that two teenagers would dare to kiss one another in her diner.  
  
"What can I get you to drink?" she asked, sounding falsely cheery.  
  
"I'll have a Sprite," Lisa said. "And a strawberry shake."  
  
"Pepsi for me," Dean said. "I'll share her shake."  
  
The woman wrote the drinks down on a notepad in her hands and said, as she was turning on her heel and walking away, "I'll be back in a few minutes to take your order."  
  
"What a stick in the mud," Dean said the minute she was out of earshot. "Unappreciative of young love." He sighed dramatically and shook his head.  
  
Lisa giggled and replied, "Yeah, she definitely had a stick up her ass."  
  
"Covered in mud," he said, grinning. "That's why she's so uptight."  
  
Lisa laughed again and he laughed with her, and as he did so, all the worries he'd had about her forcing him to talk about something he wasn't interested in talking about vanished. They seemed like an irrelevant bad dream now and it was then that he realized this was the first time he'd ever been truly happy with someone other than his little brother.  
  
And he found he liked it.


	6. Sam

The minute Dean dashed back up the stairs to meet Lisa, Sam pressed his back up against the wall and slowly slid down it. He wrapped his arms around himself. He was shaking and he couldn't seem to stop. He couldn't even seem to move. He knew he had to. He had to catch the bus home. Dean couldn't drive him home. And, even if he could, it wouldn't be for a while. He'd have to finish his date with Lisa and then come back to the school and pick him up. Depending on how long Dean took, Sam could've potentially walked home by then.  
  
 _Maybe it'd be better to do it that way,_ a small voice whispered in his mind.  _If you take your time, you won't be home alone for very long. Maybe not even at all._  
  
It was a tempting. If Sam missed his bus and walked slowly home, he wouldn't get there until Dean did. Maybe even after. They lived a good ways away from the school. If he did that, he wouldn't be home alone and if he wasn't home alone then the monster wouldn't have a chance to visit him. It was rare for the monster to emerge from its slumber during daylight hours, but it'd happened a couple of times when Dean was out with a girl. Like he was today.  
  
Sam swallowed hard, thinking of how he'd almost told Dean about the monster today before he left to go out with Lisa. He'd stopped himself at the last second for two reasons: one, he didn't know how his brother would react, and, two, it would've been selfish for him to tell him something so important when he was supposed to be going out to have fun with a girl.  
  
And that's what it would be now if he ended up having to call Dean to pick him up because he missed the bus.  
  
Selfish.  
  
Dean was having fun night out. It wouldn't be fair of Sam to call him back from that fun to take him home just because he was afraid of something that only might happen.  
  
Letting out a heavy breath, Sam forced himself to his feet, before he fell back into step with the crowd that was surging up the stairs to the front of the school where the buses were parked. He gnawed at his lip, wondering what he was going to do when he got home. Maybe if he went to the room at the end of the hall, the room with his mother's ghost sleeping in the walls, the monster wouldn't wake up. He knew the monster was as afraid of that room as his father was. He'd run in there once when it had been trying to get to him. It had stopped on the threshold, yelling at him, demanding he come out. He hadn't. Not until Dean got home, but he didn't enjoy the hours he had to sit in that room. Truth be told, Sam was afraid of that room, too. They all were. But it might be worth spending the afternoon in that room if it meant avoiding the monster and what it would do to him if he stayed in his own room.  
  
He was just exiting the school building when someone stuck out their food and he tripped, falling to the hard concrete. He threw out his arms in an attempt to break his fall, but he misjudged the angle of his fall and ended up twisting his wrist. He let out a gasp of pain both from the awkward angle of his wrist and the cement scraping at his knees through his jeans.  
  
The kids around him snickered. A few pointed at him and openly laughed. Even fewer gave him worried glances before hurrying away.  
  
Sam ignored all of them. He winced as he pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked at his bleeding palms before he began examining his wrist.  
  
He knew he hadn't broken it. If he had, the pain would be much worse and he wouldn't be able to move it as freely as he could now, but it still hurt a lot and he had to press his lips tightly together to keep himself from crying out in pain when he tried rolling it.  
  
"Sam? Are you okay?"  
  
He looked up.  
  
Jess was standing over him, looking more worried than any of the other kids had. She knelt down next to him, her eyes darting over his body. He noticed they paused briefly on his skinned knees and bleeding palms.  
  
Her brows narrowed and her lips pursed. "I don't know why they think this kind of thing is funny," she muttered almost to herself. "You could've really gotten hurt. Or even hurt someone else if you fell into them."  
  
She shook her head as she helped him to his feet and began examining his wrist. A part of him wanted to push her away, tell her he didn't need her help and he could take care of himself, but another part of him wanted to let her continue doing what she was doing. He let her fingers gently prod at his skin and when he let out a gasp of pain as then pressed down on his joints, she looked up at him. There was worry in her eyes. It was strange to think that there could be someone other than Dean who worried about him.  
  
"I don't think it's broken," she said, letting go of his hand. "Probably just sprained. You should try to get a brace on it or wrap it in gauze for a couple of days, so it can heal properly."  
  
Sam nodded, but didn't say anything in reply. Jess gave him a small smile before she turned on her heel and began walking down towards where their bus was parked. He followed a couple feet behind.  
  
Their bus was one of the last ones in the long yellow line and, though the driver hadn't yet shut the doors, it was clear they were late. They were the last ones to get on the bus.  
  
Sam sat down in one of the seats near the front and Jess took her usual seat next to him. The driver pulled the handle, closing the doors. A minute later, the long line of buses began to move out of the school parking lot, looking like a trail of yellow ants.  
  
Jess got off the stop before Sam's. She didn't say anything to him as she stood, shouldered her backpack, and got off the bus. Before it began to pull away, she turned around and smiled and waved at him, before continuing on down the street towards her house. The driver let Sam off at the next corner where his house sat. He stared down to the corner where Jess had been let off. He couldn't see her anymore, but he kept playing the moment she'd found him on the floor in the cafeteria over and over again. He thought of how she'd asked him to spend lunch with her every day, how she'd stood up to his tormenters for him. Even though she'd said she didn't understand why his bullies were bullies to begin with, he didn't understand why she didn't let them just continue bullying him. Everyone else did. To them, he was no one. Everyone else went out of their way to pick on him and, yet, she went out of her way to be nice to him. Why? He didn't get it. He couldn't fathom it. It made no sense to him. It never had.  
  
He turned his gaze to the house in front of him. He stared at the peeling white paint, the warped wood of the front door, the grimy windows and dirty, torn curtains hanging in them.  
  
He swallowed hard.  
  
The monster was in there. All he had to do was get to his room without alerting the monster to his presence, but that was easier said than done. He could try climbing in through the window, but he knew Dean locked their window when they went to school. He'd have to go through the door, through the living room where the monster was. He didn't have any other choice. All he could do was pray the monster was still sleeping.  
  
He knew the minute he opened the door this was not the case.  
  
The TV was on, blaring the sports channel. He could hear the hiss of a beer can as the monster popped it open and then a slurping sound as it took a drink. He could tell it was the monster and not his father. Only the monster drank.  
  
He swallowed again, his grip on the door handle tightening. He took a tentative step into the house, then another. He turned, closing the door behind him as quietly as he possibly could. He chanced a glance at the monster, wearing his father's skin, sitting his father's armchair. It didn't seem to notice he'd walked into the house. Still, he held his breath as he began to tiptoeing across the living room towards the hallway. His steps were slow, quiet. He didn't make a sound. He was almost there. If he could get to the hallway unnoticed, then he could spend the afternoon in his bedroom. He wouldn't have to worry about anything.  
  
"Where do you think you're going?"  
  
Sam froze. Someone was freezing his insides. He could feel a stab of cold fear in the pit of his stomach, but it was spreading throughout the rest of his body, like someone had replaced his blood with liquid nitrogen. He slowly turned around.  
  
"I'm going to my room," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He was shaking so badly that his voice shook, too. "I need to do homework."  
  
"Not gonna say hello first?" the monster asked. It looked angry and amused at the same time, like it knew how incriminating any answer to that question would be.  
  
Sam swallowed again. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides to keep his hands from shaking, but now they were shaking, too. He dug his nails into his palms until it hurt, but that just made it worse. He tried to think of an acceptable answer to the monster's question, but all he could think of was that he was seeing his father less and less often. Soon the monster was going to overtake him completely and they would be one and the same.  
  
The thought made a lump form in Sam's throat and he had to fight back tears.  
  
He missed his father.  
  
"Come here," the monster said.  
  
Sam forced his legs to move, taking steps towards the creature impersonating his father. He stopped a few feet from the couch, but the monster gestured for him to come closer. He moved until he was standing directly in front of it.  
  
The creature appraised him, its eyes moving over his body. He resisted the urge to cross his legs or cover his chest in an attempt to shield himself from the monster's gaze. He may have been wearing clothes, but he felt like he was wearing nothing.  
  
"Take off your jacket," the monster said.  
  
Sam dropped his backpack to the floor and shrugged out of his jacket, letting it fall next to his pack. He kept his eyes fixated on the wall behind the monster, not wanting to see how it was looking at him. He knew it could see him shaking. He knew it was enjoying this.  
  
"When is your brother supposed to be home?" it asked.  
  
"I don't know," Sam whispered in reply. He knew what the monster was going to do. His shaking increased. It was the middle of the day, but it didn't care. It was hungry now.  
  
"Soon, do you think?" It sounded annoyed that Sam didn't know the answer.  
  
"I don't know," he said again.  
  
"Long enough," it mumbled, half to itself.  
  
There was a short silence. The monster was thinking, weighting its options. Sam's eyes flicked to the hallway, to the room he knew was at the end of it.  
  
"Take off your shirt," the monster said.  
  
Sam didn't move.  
  
"I said, take off your shirt." This time the monster spoke through gritted teeth.  
  
Sam shook his head.  
  
The monster stood. Sam didn't have to look at its face to know it was furious.  
  
"What did you say?" it said, moving so close to him he had to take a step back.  
  
"I didn't say anything," he replied, looking into its face finally. "But I meant, 'no'."  
  
"You don't disobey me," the monster hissed.  
  
Sam swallowed hard and looked at the monster for a long moment. He moved his hands to the edge of his shirt. He started to lift it.  
  
The monster smirked at him.  
  
Without warning, Sam's hand flew out and hit the monster as hard he could in the face. For a moment, they both seemed stunned that had happened and no one moved. Then the monster lunged at him and Sam immediately began moving in the direction of the hallway. All he had to do was get to the room at the end of the hall. The monster wouldn't dare come into the room. It was afraid of the ghost that slept in the walls.  
  
A hand clamped down around Sam's injured wrist and he let out a cry of pain. The monster pulled him back towards the armchair it had been sitting in a moment ago. He writhed in its grip, struggling to get away. He knew if the monster got back to that armchair, it was over. He would have to endure whatever torture it had conjured up for him and he wouldn't be able to stop it. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't seem to make his vocal cords work like that.  
  
He kicked at the monster. His foot connected with flesh and he heard a grunt. The grip on his wrist loosened just enough that he was able to wrench out of it. He didn't hesitate this time. He sprinted down the hall to the bedroom. He whirled around in the doorway. The monster was staggering upright. It looked up at him and for a moment they were both frozen again: Sam with his hand on the door, the monster bracing itself against the hallway wall. Then the spell was broken and the monster began lumbering down the hall after him just as he slammed the door shut, turning the lock.  
  
The monster hit the door and Sam jumped back. The door held, but he could already see the wood splintering around the hinges. He slowly backed away from the door until his legs hit the edge of the bed and then he sat down. He looked frantically around the room, trying to find something to defend himself with or something that would buy him some time, but there was nothing. Only a closet full of clothes and nothing large enough that he could fend off someone as large as the monster with. He thought about trying to push the armoire in front of the door, but he knew he wasn't strong enough.  
  
Then he spotted the window near the armoire. He dashed over to it, removed the lock and began pushing up. It went up halfway and then stopped. Sam tried to squeeze himself out, but the space wasn't even big enough to fit his head through. He glanced back at the door. The monster was shouting unintelligible words through the wood. It was still hitting it, trying to break the door down. The wood was splintering more now. He didn't have much time before the wood gave way. He tried pushing the window up farther, but it still wouldn't move. He tried closing it and then opening it again, but it still wouldn't budge.  
  
There was a sickening crack behind him. He looked around. The door was staring to come off its hinges. He didn't have much time. He turned back to the window and pushed it up again. Still it wouldn't move.  
  
"Come on!" he shouted. "Open up!"  
  
The window slid up all the way.  
  
Not wasting a second, he shoved his upper body through the window and dropped down in a heap on the ground outside the window. It slammed itself shut behind him. He watched through the window as the door broke off the hinges and collapsed onto the floor of the bedroom. He saw the monster step into the room. He didn't stay to watch what it was going to do next. He took off around the side of the house and ran as fast as his legs would carry him down the street. It wasn't until he reached the corner that he realized he had nowhere to go. Everything he owned was back at the house he'd left behind. He hadn't even grabbed his backpack to bring with him.  
  
Frustration filled him as he kicked the street sign as hard as he could, but it only resulted in his toe hurting and even more frustration. He sat down on the curb and put his face in his hands. Without warning, he began to sob, great heaving sobs that wracked his body. He knew that the people in the houses around him could probably hear him crying, but he couldn't make himself stop. He knotted his fingers in his hair and pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes, trying to make the tears stop, but they wouldn't. He replayed the moment of panic in the master bedroom right before the window opened and he was able to free himself over and over again and just sobbed harder. He was going to pay for this. He knew it. Whenever the monster came to him next, it would be ten times worse than it normally was.  
  
He should've just let the monster do what it wanted to him. He shouldn't have fought back.  
  
And then, just as suddenly as he'd started crying, he stopped. Something occurred to him.  
  
The window had only opened after he'd shouted at it and it had shut itself behind him.  
  
He glanced at the little white innocuous house back down the street.  
  
His mother had rescued him.  
  
The thought just made him want to cry all over again.  
  
"Sam?"  
  
The voice was one he recognized, but it still made him jump. He turned and saw Jess standing over him. He noticed how dark the sky had gotten and realized he must've been sitting here crying a lot longer than he thought he had.  
  
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice soft and tentative. She reached out to him. He automatically recoiled. She withdrew her hand. "Why were you crying?"  
  
"I wasn't crying," Sam replied, turning away from her. He crossed his arms, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared at the cracked and faded asphalt. He watched an ant carrying a bit of gravel towards a small anthill that had been created in the center of a crack in the gutter.  
  
"Your father hurts you like mine does, doesn't he." She said this as a statement.  
  
Sam turned to look at her again. She was staring at the ants, too, her expression unreadable. He didn't say anything in reply, but he knew from her words and the way she'd spoken then he didn't have to. She knew. She didn't need him to confirm it.  
  
"Does Dean know?" she asked, her voice soft, barely above a whisper.  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"You need to tell him."  
  
He shook his head again.  
  
"Sam –"  
  
"Jess." His voice was soft, but she didn't say anything else. He went back to staring at the ants. "Until you tell someone about your dad, I don't see why I have to tell anyone about mine."  
  
She said nothing else and sat down next to him on the curb.  
  
They sat like that in companionable silence for a long time, the world growing dark around them, neither one of them wanting to go back to the houses they were forced to call home. They didn't want to face what was waiting for them there. Sam wondered where Dean was and when he was going to get home. He didn't know when he'd decided it, but he wasn't going back until he saw Dean walk through the front door. Then he would know it was safe to go back.  
  
For now anyway.  
  
"Sam?"  
  
Jess's voice startled him out of his thoughts.  
  
He turned to look at her. She'd placed her hand on his arm. She was still staring at the ants in the gutter, but her expression looked pained.  
  
"Why do we let bad people do bad things to us?"  
  
She looked up at him then. There were tears in her eyes.  
  
Sam pressed his forehead to hers without thinking about it. He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together. He expected her to pull away, but she didn't. She let out a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. He closed his as well. He didn't say anything. He didn't know how to answer her question. It didn't seem like there was a right answer. Or, at least, no answer that he would be satisfied with giving her.  
  
Letting out a soft breath, Sam stroked Jess's cheek with his thumb. Her skin was so soft.  
  
"I don't know," he finally whispered.  
  
They stayed like that. For how long, Sam didn't know. It could've been minutes or hours, but then, quite suddenly, he realized he was kissing her and she was kissing him. He wasn't sure when they'd started kissing or how. He only knew now that they'd started he never wanted to stop.  
  
They were clinging to each other like they were afraid the other was going to disappear. Jess's nails were digging into Sam's skin. Sam's fingers were gripping Jess's clothes, pulling her as close as he could. She'd wrapped her arms around his body, her fingers were in his hair, holding his mouth against his.  
  
Finally, they pulled away at the same time and looked into each other's eyes, both shocked by what had just happened. Jess's green eyes shone brightly in the dim moonlight, her hair lit up almost like a halo. She had to be an angel, Sam decided. Only angels were this beautiful  _and_  kind.  
  
They pressed their foreheads together again, breathing a little heavier, their eyes closed.  
  
"What now?" Sam whispered.  
  
"I guess now you're my boyfriend," Jess said.  
  
She sounded breathless, but she also sounded happy and when Sam opened his eyes again, he saw she was smiling. He smiled back.  
  
"Yeah," he said, lacing their fingers together. "I guess I am."


	7. Dean

After Lisa dropped Dean off at home and after she'd given him a goodbye kiss before driving away, he pushed open the front door and immediately headed for the bedroom he shared with Sam. He'd been calculating expenses in his head on the way home and, though Lisa had paid for the date, they were farther behind on their bills than he'd originally thought. He had to go fight tonight. There wasn't any other option. Their power was going to be shut off soon if he didn't get the payment in equally soon. They needed that for more reasons than just the air conditioning in Kansas' brutal summer weather. However, the minute he walked in the door, he knew something was wrong.  
  
The chairs in the living room were askew, the coffee table was overturned and, though the TV was still on, there was no one sitting in front of it. He heard cursing and someone banging around in the kitchen and figured that must be where his father was.  
  
 _But where's Sam?_  he thought instantly and panic flared through him.  
  
He pushed open the door to their room and found it empty. He stumbled back out and stood in the doorway, staring at the wall opposite him until his vision blurred. From the corner of his eye, he could see the door to the master bedroom was open. He looked towards it.  
  
Well, open was certainly one way to put it, but it looked like it had been kicked in. It was splintered into several pieces.  
  
He gulped.  
  
What had happened while he was gone to make that happen? And where was Sam now? He clearly wasn't in the house. In the back of his mind, he wondered if the ghost sleeping in the walls of the master bedroom had woken up and slipped out. He wondered if was hovering nearby, but he didn't think so. He'd be able to feel it.  
  
Swallowing hard, Dean went back to the living room and grabbed his jacket off the couch. He had to go out and find Sam. He'd ask him what happened when he found him, but first he had to find him. He tried calculating how long he'd been gone in his head since Sam had probably arrived home, but the numbers wouldn't sort themselves out in his mind in his current state of panic. All he knew was that Sam had come home, something had happened, and he hadn't been there to help him. He cursed himself silently in his head over and over and over again.  
  
 _Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Sam was upset after school. You should've insisted he tell you what was wrong. You should've explained to Lisa and gone home with him._  
  
But it didn't matter now. He couldn't go back and change what he'd done. He could only try to fix it.  
  
The front door opened again.  
  
It was quiet, barely noticeable, but Dean immediately whipped his head around and saw Sam walking through the door. He didn't look hurt. He didn't walk with a limp or hold any part of his body awkwardly. He did look nervous, but that was normal. Sam always looked nervous in one way or another. What wasn't normal was the slight smile on his brother's face.  
  
In the time since he'd decided to go out searching for his brother, Dean had come up with a whole long angry speech to spout to his brother once he found him, but seeing him now, any anger he might've felt a moment ago melted out of him. He was just glad to see him standing in front of him alright, not looking any worse for the wear.  
  
"Where were you?" he asked, trying to make it look as though he were just shrugging out of his jacket, rather than bolt out the door looking for his brother.  
  
Sam started, seemingly surprised to see his brother in front of him. He blinked a couple of times, staring at Dean and Dean stared back, waiting for an answer. Finally, Sam took a breath and said, "I was just out." Then he smiled again and, grabbing his backpack from the living room floor, went to their room.  
  
Dean watched him go, feeling more than slightly shocked.  
  
What  _had_  happened?  
  
He shook his head and followed his brother into their bedroom.

* * *

It had been almost a month since Dean Winchester had started dating Lisa Braeden and word had spread throughout the school, seemingly, within the afternoon Dean had gone on his first date with her. Now the leaves were changing colors and people were starting to put out Halloween decorations and everyone in the school knew that Dean Winchester was with Lisa Braeden.  
  
They also knew that their relationship wasn't like every other relationship Dean'd had prior to her.  
  
He wasn't meeting up with anyone in the empty janitor's closets. He wasn't taking girls into dark bedrooms at any of the few parties that had already happened during the course of the school year. And he hadn't broken up with her yet. Most of his girlfriends lasted a week or less. But not Lisa Braeden. And every other girl in the school hated her for it.  
  
Suddenly, Sam Winchester wasn't the only person that was making people whisper behind their hands or having rumors spread about him. Lisa was the subject of gossip and silent bullying as well. No one dared touch her because they didn't know if she would respond like Dean's younger brother and stay silent about it. If she didn't, they knew Dean wouldn't hesitate to find out who was bothering her and beat them to a pulp, not caring about the consequences. No one wanted to risk Dean Winchester's wrath.  
  
Though he was still going to Rufus' fighting house every other night and coming to school with bruised and bleeding knuckles the next day, Dean was the happiest he'd ever been in his life. Though he'd never would've guessed it, Lisa was the kind of girl he'd been searching for. The more time he spent with her, the more this was revealed to be true, and, the more he thought about it, the more he realized he could see himself spending the rest of his life with her.  
  
Every now and then, the old worries about her not accepting him for who he truly was underneath his cool kid façade would crop up and he'd think about breaking it off before he could have his heart broken by her, but every single time he stopped himself. If he was this happy, why cut it short? He was kidding himself if he truly thought their relationship could last forever. He would never be lucky enough to have something this good permanently and why in the world would he rid himself of this good thing before its inevitable demise?  
  
So he was still with Lisa, spending as much time as he possibly could with her, and going to fights whenever he got home, trying to rake in enough cash to keep up with how much he was spending on his new girlfriend.  
  
Sam didn't seem to notice. He seemed more withdrawn than usual, but he was also home now just as rarely as Dean was. Whenever he asked his brother where he was keeping himself these days, he simply told him he was hanging out with Jess. Dean was certain there was more to it than that, but he didn't pry. Sam was a very private person and, though he didn't keep to himself nearly as much as Sam did, Dean certainly kept quite a lot hidden, so he didn't think it would be fair to make his brother tell all when he wasn't willing to do so himself. So the silence between them stayed and the contact they had with each other lessened. Dean went on dates with Lisa. Sam hung out with Jess. Dean went to fights. Sam stayed home. Life went on and, for the first time, it was okay.  
  
Then one day, in the middle of a lunch date, Lisa set her fork down, pointed to Dean's bleeding hands, and said, "Why do you do it?"  
  
Dean, who had been halfway to stuffing a forkful of IHOP pancakes into his mouth, stopped them halfway and looked up at Lisa, his mouth still hanging open slightly. He took the bite, swallowed, and began cutting another slice of pancake. "Do what, Lis?" he asked, his eyes focused on his task, knowing very well what she was asking about.  
  
"Fight," she replied. "Why do you fight?"  
  
For a moment, he stayed silent. He continued cutting his pancake and Lisa continued staring at him, crossing her arms over her chest, waiting for an answer. Finally, he forced a smile and said, "No reason. I just enjoy it."  
  
He forced his eyes up briefly to meet hers.  
  
Lisa's eyebrow was raised, her mouth twisted to one side. She wasn't buying it.  
  
Dean swallowed.  
  
"Okay," she said, her tone dripping with annoyance. "Now tell me the real reason."  
  
Dean closed his eyes slowly, setting down his silverware as he did so. When he opened them again, he looked at her and said, "I can't, Lis."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I just – I can't, okay? Just trust me on this and understand that I can't tell you." He went back to sawing at his pancakes, though they were already cut up into small pieces by now.  
  
"How am I supposed to trust you if you don't tell me why you go fight?" she asked. She no longer sounded annoyed, she sounded worried and it was this that made Dean set his silverware down a second time and look up at her.  
  
Now her eyebrows were drawn together and there was fear in her eyes. Dean took her hands, uncrossing her arms and said, "Hey, Lisa, I'll tell you, okay? I promise. One day I will, but…I can't right now. Do you understand?"  
  
It took her a minute to nod.  
  
Relief flooded his veins where a moment ago there had been tension and anxiety.  
  
He wasn't sure he'd meant what he said. Would he tell Lisa one day? He felt he would if this relationship became anything other than a high school romance, but maybe by then she would've forgotten all about it and he'd never have to explain.  
  
 _If this relationship goes anywhere, you won't have any choice,_ he told himself.  _She'll push to know everything about you and, when she does, you'll either have to tell her everything or you'll have to let her go._


	8. Sam

The past month had been something out of a dream for Sam Winchester. Going to school was still horrible. He still had to deal with bullies in his classes. He still had to put up with people whispering about him behind their hands. He still had to contend with the monster that visited his room the nights Dean went to fights.  
  
But everything felt more bearable now that he had Jess.  
  
Sam had never been under the impression that a relationship with her – or anyone for that matter – would be easy, but he didn't know just how much he was hurting until she actually began to tell him more about what was going on. The scars he'd seen on the insides of her wrists were just a few of the ones she'd made. He soon learned she had them all over her body along with bruises that were a result of her father hitting her when he got too angry.  
  
More than anything, he just wanted to help her. He could handle his own pain now that he had her. All he wanted to do was help her, take some of the weight off her shoulders, but he didn't know how. So far he seemed to be doing alright. He was there for her. He sometimes snuck out late at night and met her under the broken streetlight. They'd sit there together in the dark. Sometimes they were silent. Other times he would hold her as she cried into his shoulder, apologizing the whole time as he reassured her over and over again that it was okay. And other times she'd talk about how unfair everything was.  
  
"You're a sweet person, Sam," she'd say softly, speaking to her knees, picking at the hem of her skirt. "You don't deserve any of the shit the world's put you through."  
  
"Neither do you," he'd reply softly.  
  
Sometimes she'd shake her head and laugh and tell him that he had no idea what he was talking about and other times she'd just sigh softly and not say anything. He didn't know how she could think what happened to him was unfair and not feel the same way about herself, but he supposed it was for the same reasons he felt the opposite: he believed he was worthless and she was an angel. Angels deserved good things. Worthless people did not.  
  
They spent their lunches together at school and went to the public library to do their homework after school, since neither one of them ever wanted to go home. Jess confessed once that she was afraid of what her father would do to the both of them if she brought him home.  
  
"He's possessive," she'd said softly as they'd stood in the aisles of books at the library. "He told me I'm not allowed to date until he says so. If he has his way, I never will. I'd never tell him about you. He'd probably kill me."  
  
From the way she said it, Sam didn't think she was exaggerating.  
  
A couple of times a week, they went to the diner that everyone else hung out at. Sam asked Dean for some money, so he could pay for himself and Jess, but he always ended up giving it back. Jess's father gave her an allowance that he didn't care what she spent it on just as long as she didn't overspend, so she always paid for him. Sam felt bad and, more than once, tried to insist on paying for his share of the meals they had, but she always waved her hand and told him not to worry about it.  
  
"I know you're not very well off, Sam," she said softly. "No one in our neighborhood is, but I do know that me and my dad are doing better than you are. My dad goes to work."  
  
She didn't say anything else, but Sam had a feeling she knew why Dean went to fights, too.  
  
Sam barely talked to anyone. Even Dean. But he talked more with Jess than he'd ever spoken with anyone in his life. He told her things he'd never told anyone. Not even Dean. And he realized very quickly that the love he felt for her wasn't simple and fleeting. It was far deeper than that. It meant something. It was probably what his father had felt for his mother before she died and even after. It was probably what kept him swimming in an amber bottle even fourteen years after her death.  
  
Despite everything, despite the way his life had gone so far, Sam didn't think that this would end any time soon. He loved Jess and he was pretty sure she loved him. The only thing that could tear them apart was something otherworldly, of that much he was sure, and, even then, they seemed just lucky enough to always scrape by, so even that seemed unlikely.  
  
That was why when he woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of sirens, nearly two months after school had started, one week before Halloween, he assumed the noise would pass by him, get loud for one moment and then fade back into the distance, so when it didn't do that, when it only got louder and louder and didn't stop after several minutes, he got up and looked out the window.  
  
Down the street, near the broken streetlight, was more red and blue emergency lights than he'd ever seen in his life. Whatever had attracted their attention, was happening further down the street, so all Sam could see were the red and blue flashes of light.  
  
Curiosity getting the better of him, he pushed himself up out of bed, slipped on his shoes, and went outside. He half ran down the street, his arms wrapped around himself, trying to keep the cool night air off his skin. He turned the corner at the broken streetlight and froze.  
  
There were two police cars and an ambulance parked at the end of the street in the cul-de-sac. People were swarming around the yellow caution tape that had been set up around the house behind the vehicles. There was tape on the door of the house they were parked outside of as well and, in the house, he could see just a hint of more tape surrounding something else that he was too far away to see.  
  
But it was none of this that had stopped him in his tracks.  
  
The reason he'd stopped, the reason his breath had hitched was because all of this was happening outside of and within Jess's house.  
  
Anxiety filling him, Sam ran down the street, standing among the group of people. Now that he was closer, he could see people milling about inside the house. There was a policeman snapping pictures of the floor and the walls. There was another policeman talking to a middle aged woman with short blonde hair wearing a bathrobe off to one side away from the crowd. Her face was tear-streaked. Yet another policeman was trying to keep the crowd under control, telling them to go home, there was nothing to see, but no one was listening to him.  
  
Sam craned his neck around a taller man in front of him and watched with horror as a pair of paramedics exited the house, pulling a stretcher covering a body with a white sheet. He shoved his way through the crowd until he was right in front of the yellow caution tape. The paramedics walked right by him. A few wisps of wavy golden hair peaked out from underneath the sheet and before Sam could stop himself, he had ducked under the tape, rushed over to the paramedics and thrown the sheet back on the stretcher.  
  
The sight that met his eyes made bile rise in this throat and tears burn his eyes.  
  
Jess lay on the stretcher. Her eyes were open, but they were empty, staring unseeingly up at the black night sky. There was blood matting her hair where Sam couldn't see and her skull looked caved in on that side. He knew he didn't want to see it. There was blood on her lips too and on her chin. It looked like she'd been throwing it up. His eyes wandered down to her midsection. There wasn't any blood there, but he had a feeling whatever bleeding had been going on there was invisible. Something had been damaged inside her and that had killed her.  
  
She was dead.  
  
The words rang through his head over and over again, even as the policeman managing the crowd grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back across the caution tape, telling him he had to stay there, even as he threw up on the pavement, unable to get the image of her lying on that stretcher out of his mind, even when Dean came to get him as he sat on the curb, rocking back and forth, shaking violently, his arms wrapped around him.  
  
Jess was dead. Dead.  
  
He would never hold her again. He would never kiss her again. He'd never see her smile or laugh or cry ever again. He would never hear her speak again.  
  
"Sam," he heard a voice saying from far away. "Sammy, you have to get up now, okay? We have to go back home. You have to sleep. You have school tomorrow."  
  
He felt himself shaking his head. How could he even think of going to school now? Jess was gone. He couldn't go to school. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't even think of doing anything. He didn't want to do anything. She was gone, gone, gone. He didn't want to live in a world where she didn't exist.  
  
There were arms under his, pulling him to his feet. He shook his head and tried to tell whoever was lifting him that he didn't want to get up, but he couldn't formulate the words. He blinked and he saw the image of Jess dead on the stretcher again. He moaned. Why wouldn't that image go away? He couldn't make it go away. He tried thinking of every happy moment he'd ever spent with her, but those images all seemed to be gone, replaced with the last one he had of her.  
  
A part of him was happy for this. He knew remembering her as she'd been would be too painful. Thinking of her as only dead, as nothing else, was easier and he didn't want to think about how much he missed her. That would hurt him more than he could handle and he'd dealt with a lot of hurt in his fourteen years of life. This was the one pain he could not fathom, the one pain he did not even want to consider.  
  
Dimly, Sam was aware that he was walking down the street. He heard a voice talking to him softly the entire way from the cul-de-sac where Jess lived to his home, but he couldn't understand a word they were saying. He barely registered the door to his house opening or the walk down the hallway to the bedroom he shared with Dean. It wasn't until he was lying on his bed that he came fully back to himself and that was when the pain hit him.  
  
Suddenly, it felt as though he were the one that had been beaten to death. His chest felt as though there were a knife stuck between his ribs and his stomach ached. He forced himself upright and threw up on the floor between his and Dean's bed. He heard the same soft voice that he'd heard on the way home and now recognized as his brother's and a gentle hand pushing back down on the bed. He still couldn't understand what he was saying, but he shook his head and moaned as tears began falling down his cheeks. Soon they were flowing down his face in rivulets and he couldn't stop them. He rolled over onto his stomach and sobbed into his pillow. He felt Dean rubbing his back and he wished he would stop, but he couldn't make himself stop crying long enough to ask him to.  
  
Sam cried all night. He didn't stop when the dark black of night gave way to the dim purple of dawn. He didn't even stop when his alarm clock rang and Dean told him they had to get up and get ready for school. He didn't stop when Dean left the house, telling him that he'd be back after he let their teachers know why they couldn't come to school today. He didn't want to. If he stopped crying, he knew he'd be left with a bottomless emptiness that would be worse than the pain and the reminder that, though everything in his world had stopped turning, life went on.  
  
Life went on without Jessica Moore and Sam could not understand how or why.


	9. Dean

It had been late, around two or three in the morning, when Dean had started back from the fight house. His t-shirt was slung over his shoulders like a sweat towel and his knuckles were bleeding again, making the tape still clinging to his skin begin to peel at the edges. He was smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke at the sky, watching it curl up towards the stars in the dim light of the moon. He was in a good mood that night. He'd made more money than he'd been expecting, more than he'd made in a long time, maybe ever.  
  
Turning the corner into his neighborhood, he'd saw the flashing red and blue lights immediately. Having to pass by the cul-de-sac to get home anyway, he glanced at the police cars, the crowd of people, the paramedics loading someone into their ambulance, and…  
  
He stopped walking.  
  
Sam was there.  
  
He was sitting on the curb near the crowd, holding himself, rocking back and forth. His face was contorted into what Dean could only describe as pure pain. He'd never seen anyone look so distressed in all his life, not even his father when they'd been told his mother died.  
  
Dropping his half-finished cigarette to the ground, he sprinted over to his brother. "Sam!" he called out, dropping to his knees next to him. He placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly when he didn't look up at his arrival. "Sam, are you okay?" But Sam didn't reply to him. He didn't say anything. He just kept rocking and moaning softly. It was like he hadn't even heard him. Panic flared in the pit of Dean's stomach. What had happened? What was going on? What had made Sam turn into this?  
  
"Do you know this boy?"  
  
Dean turned and saw a policeman standing over them, looking mildly concerned, his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
"Yeah," Dean replied. "This is my brother. Why?"  
  
The policeman nodded at Sam. "You need to get him home. He saw what happened to that girl. I don't know what he was to her, but he must've known her pretty well from the way he reacted when we brought out the gurney with her body on it and with the way he's acting now."  
  
Dean glanced at the house the police cars were still parked outside of. The crowd of people was slowly dispersing, everyone making their way back to their houses now that the ambulance had gone. He just now recognized it as the home of Jessica Moore, the girl Sam sat with on the bus, who he'd been seeing him spend almost all of his free time with during the past month. He returned his gaze to his brother, still rocking and moaning as it dawned on him.  
  
Jess was Sam's girlfriend.  
  
"What happened to her?" Dean asked cautiously, looking back up at the policeman.  
  
"Her father smashed her skull in," the policeman said. "Tragic, really. From the looks of her, it was only a matter of time. Anyway, the neighbors heard her screaming and called us. Just too late, though. By the time we got there, the man was holding her and crying and saying he didn't mean it. He was trying to wake her up, but she was already gone. There was blood everywhere in the living room."  
  
The policeman blinked as though he were coming back to himself. Dean swallowed hard, trying not to imagine what the man was describing in his mind.  
  
"Sorry," the policeman said. "I got carried away. You just get your brother home. He's going to need some time to take in what's happened."  
  
Dean nodded. He lifted Sam up and carried him home, trying to murmur words of reassurance the whole way, but nothing he said felt like enough, especially not when the moment he laid Sam down in bed, he broke down sobbing and didn't stop for hours. Dean rubbed his back for a while, but stopped when it didn't seem to be doing anything. Finally, the sun rose and their alarm rang and when Sam still hadn't stopped crying, Dean knew his brother was going to have to stay home that day.  
  
He went to the school to tell their teachers why they wouldn't be in school that day along with ask for their homework from their teachers before returning home. Sam had finally stopped crying and was sleeping, but Dean didn't know how long that would last. He stayed awake, though he was exhausted, doing his homework, watching Sam sleep, wondering what would happen to him. Sam was already sad for reasons Dean had never understood, but what would happen to him now that his girlfriend was dead? And had died so brutally?  
  
Over the course of the next couple days, Sam slept very little, ate almost nothing, and did his homework obsessively. He would get angry when he'd finish and Dean wouldn't have more waiting for him and, though Dean insisted he needed to sleep, needed to try to rest or eat or something, he understood why all Sam wanted to do was homework. It kept him from thinking about Jess. The black numbers and words printed on white and green and pink sheets of paper kept him from thinking about the fact that the girl he'd loved was gone.  
  
It was the second day of this that the phone rang.  
  
This didn't happen unless it was someone from a billing company, asking where their most recent payment on something or the other was. Dean, thinking this was who it might be, answered the phone, but instead of hearing a polite scripted message, he heard the voice of a woman he'd never heard before in his life.  
  
"Is this the Winchester residence?" the woman asked.  
  
"Yes?" Dean replied tentatively.  
  
"Is Sam Winchester there?"  
  
Dean glanced towards the bedroom he shared with Sam. His brother was sleeping. He'd passed on top of his math textbook. "He's busy."  
  
"Well, would you let him know that the funeral for his friend Jessica Moore is going to be held the day after tomorrow?" she said. "I didn't get to talk to my niece very often – once a week at the most – but the few times I did, she always told me about Sam. I got the impression they were very close. I know she'd want him there."  
  
"Yeah," Dean said, still staring Sam through the open door of their bedroom. He was sleeping so soundly. "I'll tell him."  
  
"Thank you," the woman said and then hung up.  
  
Dean had no intention of telling Sam that Jess's funeral was going to be the day after tomorrow. He wasn't even going to tell him that woman had called. His brother had been through enough. He didn't need to go to the funeral of the girl he'd loved as well. He didn't need the pain that would bring. He needed to rest and try to heal and move on.  
  
If that was even possible.  
  
He let out a sigh and ran his hands over his face. How was Sam supposed to move on from this? It'd be one thing if she'd broken up with him and was still alive and healthy, but she wasn't. She was dead. And it wasn't even that she was dead. She'd been murdered by her father and Sam had seen what had been done to her. Dean hadn't and he couldn't imagine it, but he didn't really want to. If he'd seen Lisa dead –  _murdered_  – would he ever be able to move on?  
  
No, probably not. And he wasn't half as sensitive as Sam.  
  
Walking back into their bedroom, Dean shut the door as quietly as he could behind him, not wanting to disturb his brother. He needed his rest.  
  
"Who was that on the phone?"  
  
Dean jumped nearly a foot in the air and whirled around. Sam lay on the bed in the exact same position he had been when Dean had been looking in at him from his place near the phone, only now his eyes were open. It occurred to Dean that his brother might've been awake the whole time and had just been pretending to be asleep. Or he'd only been in a half sleep and had woken up when Dean had left the room.  
  
"No one," Dean replied, forcing a smile.  
  
"Who was it?" Sam asked again. He had a determined look on his face, as though he already knew what the conversation had been about and was only trying to confirm his suspicions.  
  
Dean sighed. "It doesn't matter, Sammy, okay?" he said, his impatience leaking through into his tone. "Just go back to sleep."  
  
Now Sam glared. "I want to know who it was."  
  
Clenching his hands into fists, cursing himself silently, Dean said, "Fine. It was Jess's aunt. She wanted to know if you were home. I told her you were busy."  
  
"What else?"  
  
"She wanted me to let you know she called."  
  
"And?"  
  
Damn him for being so smart. "She told me Jess's funeral is the day after tomorrow."  
  
Sam sat up. "I want to go."  
  
"We're not going," Dean said automatically. "You need to stay home and rest. You need to get yourself in a good state of mind so you can go back to school. I know I don't act like it, but school is important, Sammy, okay? You're really smart and you need to get good grades now, so you can do amazing things in the future."  
  
"I want to go," Sam said again.  
  
Dean sighed and ran his hands over his face again. He knew there was nothing he could do to talk his brother out of this.  
  
And that was how Dean ended up loading Sam into the passenger seat of his car early on a rainy Thursday afternoon near the end of October, wearing the suits their father had gotten them for their grandfather's funeral a year ago. They were a little snug now, but they fit well enough and they didn't have the time or money to go out and buy new ones anyway.  
  
The drive to church where the funeral would be held wasn't a very long one, but to Dean it felt as though the ride would never end. Sam stayed slumped against the car door the whole time, watching the wet, dreary world whiz by outside the window. He looked determined, as though he'd convinced himself he wasn't going to cry simply by willpower alone and yet, at the same time, Dean didn't think he'd ever seen a more desperate and despairing expression on the face of anyone in his life. Not even the night Jess had died. There was something about the way Sam held himself, about the way he kept twisting his fingers in his lap, tearing apart pieces of paper he found in the car door and scattered about the floor, that was so intrinsically sad that Dean had to force himself to keep his eyes on the road and clench his fists on the steering wheel to keep himself from crying.  
  
This wasn't Sam's funeral, but, in a weird sort of way, that was how it felt.  
  
Dean parked in front of the church and led his brother around the building to the graveyard behind it. There was a tent placed over a freshly turned pile of earth. There was a mahogany coffin set near the hole in the ground and there were people, all dressed in black, walking from their cars to the burial site. There wouldn't be a wake, Dean had been told when he'd called Jess's aunt back, letting her know they would be attending the funeral. Jess had died from blunt force trauma to her skull and, though the people down at the morgue had tried to repair the damage, attempted to make it look not as bad as it actually was, they hadn't been able to. It would be a closed casket ceremony.  
  
"She wanted to be cremated anyway," her aunt had said to Dean over the phone. "I found what looked like a suicide note of hers when I was going through her things and in it she stated that was what she wanted."  
  
Dean hadn't known Jess beyond the few times he'd nodded politely to her in the hallways, acknowledging her as Sam's friend, but from what he could tell after the fact, she had been a very unhappy girl. She'd written a suicide note before her death. She'd been murdered by her father. Who knew what else had been going on with her before she was killed? Probably a lot more than he or maybe even Sam knew.  
  
As they approached the crowd near the gravesite and took seats in the middle of the group of chairs that had been set up for the funeral's attendees, Dean felt, not for the first time, that this wasn't fair. Not only because Jess had clearly had a horrible life before being brutally murdered, but because his and Sam's lives weren't all that great either and now his brother had lost his girlfriend. Sam had been sad before he was dating Jess, but with her, Dean had seen a happiness in him he hadn't seen in years. Now she was gone and the sadness that was a part of him now was ten times worse than it had been before.  
  
 _You don't know what you've got till it's gone_ was how the saying went and Dean found that more than ever to be true. It didn't matter who you were. You could be as appreciative of what you had as the next person, but, at the end of the day, no one ever knew exactly what they had until it was taken away from them.  
  
A few more groups of people showed up, taking up the seats around them, before a priest in a white robe, carrying a black Bible with a cross embossed in silver on the front stood on a small podium that had been set up beside the casket.  
  
"The death of a child is always one of the most tragic," the priest began. "When we come to these gatherings after the death of a child, we see not only someone we loved gone from us forever, but a life unlived and so many opportunities and experiences that were missed out on or cut short by their death. When a child dies of sickness, it is tragic because the child is usually sick for a long time and has lived so little due to the sickness that they have not experienced even half as much as a healthy child does before their death, but a death such as this one is even more tragic. Jessica Lee Moore was not given to God by an illness, but taken away from this world by a man who should have protected her and cared for her."  
  
Dean glanced over at Sam. He sat rigidly in his seat, his hands on his knees clenched into white-knuckled fists. His mouth was set in a thin line and his eyes were widened slightly as though he thought by making them as physically dry as possible, no tears would fall. Dean wanted to take his hand, to reassure him everything would be okay, but he'd be lying and he didn't know if Sam wanted his comfort just now anyway.  
  
The priest continued speaking. He talked about what a wonderful person Jess had been, though Dean was pretty sure the man had never known her. He talked about how loved she'd been and how resilient she'd been in the face of so much pain and how unfair it was no one knew because she hid it so well. He made it sound as though it had been her duty to hide what her father was doing to her, despite the fact that it ultimately led to her death, and Dean had to clench his own fists to keep himself from scoffing. He didn't buy that no one had known what was happening to Jess. If someone had just looked at her a little longer than a few seconds, they would've known. And if they'd had any sense, they would've let the police know before it was too late.  
  
Once the priest finished, a few people came up and spoke, reading from scraps of crumpled notebook paper that they pulled out of their pockets. Dean glanced at Sam again. He didn't really expect him to go up and say anything about Jess, but he half hoped he would. Maybe if he got out some of what he was feeling, if he preached to strangers about the kind of person Jess had been to him, then he'd start to move on from her.  
  
But he didn't. He stayed firmly planted in his chair.  
  
Finally, the speakers stopped coming and the coffin was lowered into the ground. Dean stood with Sam around the edge of the hole that had been dug into the ground. He watched as the casket was lowered into it and as the priest said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," sprinkling some dirt onto the lid before everyone began to disperse.  
  
There was a small table filled with little plastic cups of punch and a plate of cookies, but Sam didn't seem to want to stay for the reception and Dean didn't mind leaving early. Though he hadn't expected it to be, the funeral had been far from fun.  
  
"Let's just go home," Sam whispered, wrapping his arms around himself and walking quickly towards the car. His expression was unreadable.  
  
Dean only nodded in reply.  
  
Sam fell asleep on the way home and Dean stared out the windshield, barely seeing where he was going, wondering what was going to become of his brother. And himself.  
  
 _She was killed by her father,_  he thought to himself. _Our father hits us, too. What if we're killed? What if I'm not killed and Sam is?_  
  
Dean swallowed hard. He didn't like the thought of it and he pushed the thought as far from his mind as he possibly could. That wasn't going to happen. He and Sam had each other, something Jess did not have and they would get through this. Once Dean got enough money together, they could move out into an apartment and leave their father to rot in his own filth. It wasn't ideal, but Dean would live with it. He'd have Sam and that was what mattered.  
  
That was all that mattered.


	10. Sam

The minute the car pulled into the driveway, Sam jerked awake. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and hesitated on getting out of the car. He stared at the white house where he lived with his brother, his father, a monster that visited him late at night, and a ghost that slept in the walls. He stared at the peeling paint on the wooden boards that made up the outer walls. He stared at the door with the ripped screen. He stared at the crumbling concrete of the steps leading up to that door. And he wondered for the first time how many more times he could walk through those doors, knowing what lay within: a brother that snuck out to fight in back alleys, a monster that hurt him when his brother was gone, a ghost that refused to let its memory sleep, and a father that had left him and his brother a long, long time ago.  
  
"Sammy."  
  
Startled out of his reverie, Sam blinked and looked at his brother, only now realizing Dean hadn't gotten out of the car yet either.  
  
Dean was staring at his own hand, which was still resting on the shift stick. He hadn't even turned the car off yet. Sam stared at his brother's hand, too. The car was still rumbling so he couldn't be sure if he saw it right, but he thought he could see Dean shaking.  
  
"I didn't know Jess like you did," he said, finally looking up. "I just knew she was your friend and I knew she was a sweet girl. I know how much she meant to you, too. I know there was something else going on between you two and I don't know how far that went, but…I'm sorry you had to lose her. I don't know what I can do to make it better…and I'm just…I'm sorry."  
  
It was rare that Dean Winchester, star of the local high school was at a loss for words, even in private, and Sam wasn't sure what to say to his brother to let him know that he'd said the right thing. He wasn't sure he had, to be honest. If anything, Dean's words had left him feeling emptier than before. He knew Dean truly was sorry that Sam had lost someone who meant so much to him, but he couldn't have any idea how he felt. He didn't know about the monster that resided within their home or the bullies that tormented him at school. He thought that, since the death of their mother – something Sam didn't even remember – this was the most tragic thing to have happened to him and, in many ways it was, but as Sam sat there in that car and looked at his brother after he'd finished telling him just how sorry he was this had happened, it felt, to Sam, like just another thing to add on top of everything else.  
  
It was just one thing too many.  
  
Sam didn't know what to say. He didn't think telling his brother 'thank you' was appropriate, but he didn't think he should just stay silent either. Finally, the silence had stretched so long that Dean gave a tight lipped smile and got out of the car. After a moment, Sam followed. He tailed his brother to their front door and watched him insert their house key into the lock, push open the door, and step into their tiny, dirty house.  
  
The TV in the living room was on and the monster dozed in front of it. The channel was turned to afternoon football. Probably a college team or a replay from the night before. Yesterday had been Sunday, right? Sam couldn't remember. The days all seemed to blur together anymore. Time had no meaning. Nothing had any meaning and he didn't really think it ever would again.  
  
Dean mumbled something about making them both a turkey sandwich for lunch. Sam gave a noncommittal reply and went into the bathroom. He turned both taps of the faucet in the sink on all the way and locked the door behind him, then turned to look at himself in the mirror.  
  
The boy that stared back at Sam wasn't someone he recognized.  
  
Sam had never looked healthy. Not that he could remember anyway. But the boy staring back at him looked downright sickly. He looked like he was dying. There were dark bruise-like circles under eyes that were bloodshot and popping from lack of sleep. His cheekbones stuck out in sharp relief and the suit he was wearing hung loose on his body. Anyone who looked at him could tell just how much weight he'd lost in the week since Jess died. His skin was so paper white it almost looked translucent and gray. And he'd never been hairy, but there was a thin five o'clock shadow growing along his jawline.  
  
A hysterical laugh bubbled up and flowed out of him. It felt painful laughing like that, especially after he'd just gotten back from Jess's funeral, but he couldn't stop. It was ironic that the girl he would fall in love with would have a monster living within the four walls she called home as well. It was ironic that monster killed her and the monster lying dormant in his living room didn't even know he was home. It was ironic that after all of this he – the boy no one loved, no one even wanted – was the one left living and she – the girl everyone thought was beautiful, everyone desired – was the one that had died.  
  
Sam would think about it over and over again later, but he'd never be able to remember when he stepped away from the mirror long enough to grab the razor blade resting on the edge of the bathtub. He didn't remember taking the blade out of the razor or pushing up his sleeves, but the next thing he remembered was staring at the pale white skin of his inner forearm, his hand clenched into a fist, his other hand holding the blade just above his skin and wondering where he would cut himself open first.  
  
That was another thing he wouldn't remember later: deciding he was going to kill himself.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the blade to his skin. He saw his reflection in the silver, he saw the way it indented on his arm, making a small scratch. He held his breath as he flayed himself open from his wrist to his elbow three times on his left arm, then, before the pain could set it and before the full damage could be realized, he did the same thing to his other arm.  
  
Sam lay his arms on the edge of the white porcelain sink and watched the blood flow down into the bowl, mingling with the water, making it pink. It flowed in small rivers down his skin. Then it overflowed and suddenly everything was red. The sink. The water. And the cuffs of the nice suit Dean had gotten him a long time ago.  
  
He blinked and he was lying on the linoleum floor of the bathroom. Someone was pounding on the bathroom door and yelling. His eyes felt so fucking heavy.  
  
The floor was red, too.  
  
He blinked again and Dean was holding him, shaking him and yelling at him. There were tears running down his cheeks. He seemed to be saying 'please' a lot, but Sam wasn't sure. Dean's words were garbled, heard as if from a long distance, though he was right in front of him. Sam tried to lift his arms, to pry his brother off of him, but they felt way too heavy, so he let them lay.  
  
One thought came into his mind, crystal clear.  
  
 _I'm dying. I tried to kill myself, remember? I cut open my arms. I'm dying._  
  
Sam managed a smile before everything faded away.


	11. Dean

He was in the kitchen making them lunch.  
  
Sam had been in the bathroom for about five minutes and that was a long time, but Dean figured his brother needed time to himself. He needed to grieve alone. He needed to cry where his big brother couldn't hear him. That was why he'd turned the faucet on full blast. Normally, Dean would tell Sam to turn it off. He had to pay for the water bill along with everything else and it certainly wasn't cheap, but they'd just gotten back from the funeral of the girl Sam loved. He wasn't going to make him do anything just yet.  
  
Another five minutes passed and Sam still wasn't out of the bathroom. Dean glanced towards the door. It was still shut and the water was still running.  
  
"Sammy!" he called experimentally. "Lunch is ready!"  
  
Nothing.  
  
Dean shrugged one shoulder and continued putting mayonnaise on Sam's sandwich. His little brother loved extra mayo.  
  
Another five minutes.  
  
Dean had put away all of the sandwich stuff. His sandwich and Sam's were both sitting on the counter. He glanced at the bathroom door. He could still hear the water running.  
  
Suddenly panic set in.  
  
Sam had come home and gone straight into the bathroom and Dean was sure he'd been going in there to cry, but you could do more in a bathroom than take a shower, use the toilet, or cry when you'd just come home from the funeral for the girl you'd loved.  
  
He tried to remember the look on Sam's face when they'd walked in the door, but he realized he hadn't looked at his brother since they walked in the door. The last time he'd seen Sam's expression had been in the car right after they'd gotten home and then he'd looked emotionless, damaged beyond repair.  
  
The word  _ruined_  came to mind, but Dean didn't like thinking about it that way.  
  
He swallowed hard, his gaze still locked on the bathroom door, wondering what he didn't know about Sam's life. Maybe his brother was hiding things from him. Maybe there was more going on in his life that was causing him pain. Maybe he just needed one little thing to push him over the edge and that locked bathroom door was not as innocent as it seemed.  
  
An image of Sam lying motionless on the bathroom floor came unbidden to Dean's mind and that was all it took for him to bolt through the kitchen and across the living room. He began pounding on the door with his fists, already bruised from fighting.  
  
"Sammy!" He yelled, his voice half hysterical. "Sammy, open up! You need to come out now, okay? I've got your lunch in the kitchen. You need to come out! You need to!"  
  
No reply.  
  
Dean's panic escalated.  
  
"Sam, if you don't open this door, I'm going to break the door down!" he warned, hoping that'd make his brother open the door.  
  
Still nothing.  
  
His father was saying something angrily behind him, but he ignored him.  
  
He gauged the wood of the door, trying to figure out how best to bring it down, before kicking the space nearest the handle.  
  
It didn't even splinter.  
  
He kicked it again harder.  
  
Still nothing.  
  
He tried again.  
  
He heard a crunch.  
  
He continued kicking the door over and over again until finally it splintered away from the lock and swung open, revealing the horror within.  
  
"Oh god," he gasped, pressing a shaking hand to his forehead. He slumped against the doorjamb to keep himself from falling to his knees.  
  
The sight before him was a thousand times worse than anything he could've ever dreamed up in his head. Sam lay on the floor, still in his suit, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but you could hardly they'd ever once been white there was so much blood. It covered everything. The sink, the floor, Sam's suit, Sam's face. Everything.  
  
Dean slumped to his knees. There was no way his brother could still be alive. Not with all of this blood. There was no way. But he couldn't just let him lie there. He couldn't just accept his little brother was gone. He couldn't.  
  
Crawling over to Sam, he lifted his upper body into his lap and shook him none too gently, yelling, "Sammy, wake up!"  
  
Sam didn't respond. Just like he hadn't responded when he'd called him for lunch.  
  
 _You should've known,_  a voice whispered savagely in the back of his mind. _It was obvious._  
  
He ignored it and shook Sam again, yelling louder. "Sammy, c'mon! Wake up! You have to wake up!" He felt his eyes burning with tears. He blinked and they ran down his cheeks.  
  
Still Sam didn't open his eyes.  
  
Dean let out a choked sob and continued shaking Sam, continued yelling at him, begging him to open his eyes, to wake up, to let him know he was still alive, that he hadn't left him here alone in a world that had never wanted either one of them.  
  
Finally, Sam's eyelids fluttered. For a moment, they opened all the way and he looked at Dean. He seemed to be trying to say something, but didn't have the strength to. His eyelids fluttered shut again, but that was enough for Dean. He laid Sam gently down, sense finally entering his mind as he realized he needed to call an ambulance. He needed to get Sam to a hospital. They were the only ones who could help him.  
  
He fished his old, half-broken cellphone out of his pocket and dialed 911.  
  
"911, what is your emergency?" a pleasant voice said.  
  
"My brother," Dean gasped out instantly. "He-he tried to kill himself. I don't know. I think-I think he tried cutting his wrists. He's lying unconscious in the bathroom. There's-there's a lot of blood. He's still alive. He just needs an ambulance." His voice shook and he was barely keeping himself from screaming, breaking down sobbing, slamming his fist into the wall.  
  
The woman asked him a few questions, such as where he lived, how old he and Sam were, and if anything like this had happened before. She told him to stay on the line until the ambulance arrived. Dean didn't want to. He wanted to hang up and scream, but he couldn't. He kept Sam's head in his lap, brushing his hair out of his eyes with trembling fingers.  
  
It seemed to take the ambulance a lifetime to arrive. Every second Dean sat with his brother on that cold linoleum floor was another second Sam was slipping further away from life and closer to death. He let the lady on the 911 line ask him countless questions. He let her try to calm him down, but he couldn't. All he could think about was the paramedics getting there too late and having to go to another funeral, this time with his little brother in the coffin rather than standing emotionless beside him.  
  
 _You should've known._  
  
The sirens finally came within earshot. Dean listened to them get closer and closer and closer all the while getting louder and louder and louder. The paramedics threw open the door and rushed through the living room to the bathroom where Sam lay bleeding out and all Dean could do was close his eyes and let out a breath of relief.  
  
The next hour was a blur of activity and anxiety.  
  
The paramedics took Sam from the bathroom floor and put him on a stretcher. They covered his nose and mouth with an oxygen mask and rushed him out of the house again, leaving Dean with a thousand questions and a bathroom covered in his little brother's blood.  
  
Without thinking, Dean left the house, jumping into his car and tailing the ambulance to the hospital. When he got there, there was a doctor waiting for him at the entrance to the emergency bay. The first thing he told him was Sam was stable. He'd been able to get a blood transfusion started on the way over to the hospital by the paramedic team. At the hospital, they'd given him more blood. He wasn't okay or even ready to leave the hospital, but it looked like he was going to live. They were lucky to have gotten to him when they did. A few minutes more and it might've been too late.  
  
The second thing he told him was far more complex.  
  
"Are you aware that your brother has been raped within the past month?" the doctor asked.  
  
The question made an icy chill settle deep within Dean's bones. "What?" he asked.  
  
"Your brother was examined upon being admitted into the hospital," the doctor said. "And during his examination one of the nurses noted that his anus appeared to have been violently penetrated. It is consistent with male rape victims. Were you aware of this?"  
  
Dean shook his head. "No," he gasped out.  
  
"Is there anyone you can think of that might have done this to him?"  
  
Dean began to shake his head again, began to say no, thinking of how often he was with his brother. The only time they were apart was when –  
  
He sucked in a breath.  
  
– was when he went out to fight in the middle of the night for money.  
  
And then Sam was left home alone.  
  
With their father.  
  
He didn't want to say it. He wanted to feign ignorance. He didn't want to believe his father could have crossed that line. Sure, he beat them. He didn't pay the house bills. He sat in his filth all day and watched sports channels while drinking, but rape his youngest child? Dean didn't think he was capable of it.  
  
Clearly he was wrong.  
  
Short of someone climbing in through their window, there was no one else it could have been and, as rough of a neighborhood as they lived in, he seriously doubted that's what happened.  
  
"Yes," he finally said in a strangled voice. "There's one person."  
  
"Who?"  
  
Dean forced himself to look into the doctor's eyes. "My father."  
  
The doctor told him to stay in the waiting room while he went to check on Sam. Dean knew he was really going to call child services and, if their father really was raping Sam, then they needed to get away from him anyway. Even if he wasn't, they weren't going back to that house. Once child services saw where they were living, saw the filth on the floors, the unpaid bills on the doormat, felt the ghost that dwelled within the paper of the walls, they wouldn't let them return.  
  
It wasn't very long after the doctor had left him and he'd taken a seat that the doors to the emergency bay opened again and Lisa walked through. She looked around the waiting room before spotting him and making her way towards him.  
  
In all the anxiety and pain of the day, Dean had completely forgotten he had a girlfriend. Seeing her now, he knew what he had to do. But he didn't like it.  
  
When Lisa reached him, he stood.  
  
"How are you?" she asked, her voice full of concern. "I drove over because I wanted to see if you were free to go to a movie today, but when I got there, your neighbors were kind of crowded around the door. I asked one of them what happened and they told me. I came here right after to check on you and make sure you're doing okay."  
  
She brushed his hair out of his eyes. He could see true worry in hers. He swallowed. This was going to make this that much harder.  
  
"Lis, I appreciate it," he said softly, "I really do, but I-I can't see you anymore. We can't-we have to break up, okay?"  
  
The hurt that flashed across her face was reflected in his own. He waited for her to say something, but when she didn't speak, he realized she was waiting for him to elaborate. He took a deep breath and tried to formulate the words without wanting to take them back.  
  
"Sam is messed up," he added, his voice barely above a whisper. "He's been going through a hell of a lot. I think-I think my dad has been…raping him and I…" He looked away and bit his lip. "I can't be with you right now because I need to focus on Sammy. The girl he loved was murdered by her dad and our dad has been doing horrible things to him and I don't even know if I'm going to be able to go to the same school." He sighed, hanging his head, feeling weak and powerless. This wasn't how he'd wanted things to go. "Right now I can't be with you and it's not that I don't want to be with you it's just that…"  
  
"You need to take care of Sam," Lisa said softly.  
  
He looked up at her. She smiled sadly.  
  
"I get it," she added. "I do. I really do, okay? I'm not happy about it, but I get it."  
  
Dean let out a breath of relief and kissed her one last time, hard. When he finally pulled away, when she'd said goodbye and driven away in car he'd spent most of the last few months riding in to and from school, diners, movie theaters, her house, school sports games, and the park, he wondered if years from now he would look back at this moment and realize that he'd just given up something wonderful because he wasn't sure how to handle two things at once.  
  
Later he would realize the reason first loves are called first loves is because they're usually not the last.


	12. Sam

A steady beeping invaded Sam's senses, bringing him back into consciousness when all he wanted to do was continue to sleep. The bed he was laying in was comfortable. The blankets were warm, the pillow was soft, the mattress was too. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up. For a few moments, he tried to fall back asleep, tried to lose himself in the comfort of the bed he was lying in, but that didn't seem to help. He tried rolling over, thinking that maybe if he changed positions, he'd be more comfortable, but his body wouldn't move.  
  
And that's when it all came back to him.  
  
With a fuzzy sort of clarity, Sam remembered coming home from Jess's funeral. He remembered going into the bathroom and turning on the faucet. He remembered watching the water run and run and run. He remembered cutting his arm open with the razorblade he'd found sitting on the edge of the bathtub. And he remembered Dean's tear-streaked face when he'd found himself inexplicably in his arms.  
  
He remembered all of this in the time it took for him to open his eyes and see his brother slumped over, asleep in a white plastic chair next to his bed, holding his hand.  
  
Sam was pretty sure that Dean wasn't supposed to be this close to him, but, as per usual, his brother seemed to be doing whatever he wanted to do.  
  
Dean's eyelids fluttered open, as though he could sense his brother were finally conscious and when he saw Sam's hazel eyes open, he sat up quickly and said softly, "Sammy. Hey. How-how are you feeling? Are you okay?"  
  
Sam opened his mouth to say he was fine before he slowly shut it again. Lying about his wellbeing had come so naturally to him all his life that it was strange to think about telling the truth, but he could hardly tell Dean that he was fine when he was lying in a hospital bed, the skin of his arms sown together with black thread and covered in white gauze after he'd taken a razorblade to them.  
  
And yet, telling him how he really felt just…felt wrong.  
  
But how  _did_  he feel? Sam wasn't even sure he could answer that question.  
  
Right now, he didn't feel anything.  
  
The silence stretched on and on, Dean waiting for an answer to his question, Sam not giving him one, until finally Dean spoke again, saying, "Dad's in prison. Well, he's going to be in prison. You just have to testify in court against him, but the doctor's promised they won't let that happen after you're out of here and adjusting to the foster home. He's not going to hurt you again, Sammy, I'm not going to let him."  
  
Sam didn't need Dean to explain how he knew about the monster that lived inside their father. He knew enough about how the legal system worked to know that when someone was brought in after a suicide attempt, their body was examined for any indication as to why they might have tried it to begin with.  
  
He knew what they'd found.  
  
"What-what's going to happen to us?" Sam whispered. His voice came out scratchy and weak from the tubes that had been shoved down his throat and only recently been pulled out.  
  
"We're going to live in a foster home," Dean said softly, his hand finding Sam's again. He smiled sadly as he spoke. "Well, I am. You're going to stay here until they decide you're no longer a danger to yourself. There's a ward downstairs that you can stay in with other kids who've been through some shit."  
  
"Then what?" Sam asked, his voice still barely above a whisper.  
  
Dean leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers laced loosely together, as he looked at his younger brother, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. "Then I'll take you home."  
  
The look on Dean's face was heartbreaking. He had dark bruise-like circles under his eyes, he was getting five o'clock shadow on his jaw, and maybe it was just Sam's imagination, but he looked thinner too. But it wasn't just the exhaustion in his physical appearance that made Sam's weak fingers curl into the hospital blankets as he tried not to cry.  
  
It was the slump of his shoulders, the way his mouth turned down more than just a little at the corners, and the red that rimmed his eyes. Like he'd been crying. A lot.  
  
Sam didn't say anything else. He wasn't sure what else to say. He'd never thought that his suicide would hurt his brother. Dean had everything: a girlfriend, popularity, and a way out one day. Sam didn't have any of that. And he'd figured if he died, his brother would move on from it. He had so much going for him, he'd forget about his nerdy unpopular little brother quickly.  
  
Seeing him now, he wondered why he'd ever thought that to begin with.  
  
Looking down at his hands, still dangling between his knees, Dean said, "The nurse said that as soon as you woke up, they were going to take you to the psychiatric unit downstairs. The doctors said you don't need any more blood transfusions or anything. You're just going to be weak for a couple of days."  
  
Sam said nothing. He wasn't looking at Dean anymore either. He was staring at his bandaged arms. He wondered what the skin would look like beneath the dressings. He wondered if he was happy or sad that he'd survived his suicide attempt.  
  
He wondered what life was going to be like now that their father was going to prison and they were in foster care. And he wondered who was going to take care of the ghost in the walls of their old house. He wondered if anyone would even buy that house with a ghost lurking in the master bedroom. He didn't think they would.  
  
He was still thinking about this when the nurse walked in. He was still staring at his arms and didn't look up, though he heard her come in.  
  
"It's time for us to move him downstairs," she said in a flat voice.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw Dean lift his head.  
  
"Okay," his brother replied. He didn't move.  
  
"That means you have to go, Mr. Winchester," the nurse added impatiently, shifting her weight from one leg to the other in the doorway of Sam's hospital room.  
  
Sam didn't look at his brother. Though he didn't want his brother to go, he also wanted to be alone. He wanted to spend several days alone. Maybe however long he was trapped in the psychiatric unit would be a good few days he could use to collect himself and get used to what was going to be their new life, a life without the drowsing monster in their living room.  
  
A life without Jess.  
  
His throat constricted at the thought and he had to clench his hands into fists to keep the tears welling up in his eyes from spilling over onto his cheeks.  
  
From the corner of his eye, he saw Dean stand and walk to the doorway where the nurse stood. She stepped aside so he could get through. Dean hesitated and looked back at his brother, sitting, shaking in the hospital bed. Sam wondered if Dean really wanted to leave him or if he was only doing what the nurse asked so he could come back later. He wasn't sure anymore.  
  
"I'll see you soon, Sammy, okay?"  
  
Sam looked up, his eyes still glassy with unshed tears. He commanded his mouth to open, to reply to his brother, but he couldn't do it. He was afraid if he did, he'd let out a sob instead. So he only nodded. Dean nodded back once and then Sam was alone.  
  
"You need to change into this first," the nurse said, placing a pair of teal blue scrubs at the end of Sam's bed. "Hospital gowns aren't really used in the psychiatric unit."  
  
She words were curt, her lips curling inwards as she spoke. For a moment, Sam wondered why she was being so short with him, why all of this disdain and then her eyes strayed to the bandages on Sam's arms quickly before she stalked out of the room, giving him privacy to get dressed and suddenly it all made sense. Sam let out a humorless breath of a laugh. Of course. He should've known. She thought that he didn't deserve to be here. She thought he belonged with the crazies downstairs. She thought he'd tried to kill himself for some superficial reason. And even if he hadn't, she thought that there couldn't be anything in his life horrible enough to justify trying to take his own life over when there were children in this hospital dying of cancer.  
  
Sam hated himself enough that he wasn't entirely sure her feelings weren't justified.  
  
He dressed in the scrubs quickly after the nurse returned once more to remove the IVs from his arms. Once he had them on, he sat down on the edge of his bed. All he wanted to do was crawl back between the covers and sleep, but he was being moved and he was certain that the moment he got comfortable again was the moment they'd come in, ready to lead him to where he'd be staying for the next few days.  
  
The nurse that came to lead him down to the psychiatric unit was the same as the one who had given him his scrubs. She didn't say anything to him. She just pushed a wheelchair into the room and waited for him to sit in it.  
  
He swallowed hard. "It's okay," he said. "I can walk."  
  
The nurse sighed and didn't bother trying to hide her eye roll. "You're required to sit in this until we get to your room. It's not my rules."  
  
Sam swallowed again and got up from the end of the bed and took a seat in the wheelchair.  
  
All the way down to the ward, he kept his eyes firmly planted on the floor, not paying attention to the way the hallway twisted and turned at all. He kept his hands clenched into fists in his lap. His toes curled around the edges of the footrests on the wheelchair. He was sure he looked the part of troubled and crazy teen in need of professional help. He was also sure that after everything that had happened, he didn't care.  
  
Finally, the wheelchair stopped and Sam blinked owlishly, looking up. They were in a dimly lit room next to a bed.  
  
"This is your bed," the nurse said, her voice still clipped and irritated. "You're rooming with a boy named Jimmy Novak. If you want to choose what you eat, you have to get up at seven with everyone and order it. Otherwise you get what you get."  
  
Sam didn't say anything. He just climbed from the wheelchair to the bed.  
  
The nurse pushed the wheelchair out of the room and closed the door behind her.  
  
Sam laid down and stared at the light on his nightstand. The nurse hadn't turned it off and Sam was half afraid to. A dark room back in the haunted white house on the street corner with the only working light on the street had meant the monster would come and, though Sam knew the monster couldn't get to him now, he was still afraid that it would find a way. He swallowed hard, but this time he didn't bother trying to stop the tears that leaked out of the corners of his eyes and rolled down his face onto his pillow that was covered in some sort of uncomfortable sterile paper.  
  
Without a word, Sam turned off the light and rolled over, facing the curtain that separated his bed from the bed of the other boy. Jimmy, the nurse had called him. He wondered what he was here for, but in the end he decided it didn't matter. They were all fucked up here for different reasons. Sam wondered if he would ever be able to leave if he didn't speak.


	13. Day One

**_Dean_**  
Everything had changed since Sam's suicide attempt. Everything had fallen apart.  
  
And it had only been one day.  
  
Though he didn't know for sure, Dean was pretty sure that Lisa hadn't been the one to start spreading rumors about himself and Sam. He wasn't sure who it was or how they'd found out everything they had about the life that Dean and Sam Winchester led, but it seemed that overnight everyone knew not only that Sam had attempted suicide but also that their father had sexually abused him and physically abused both Sam and Dean. Dean Winchester. The king of the school, the boy that got all the girls, the boy everyone wanted to be.  
  
Dean Winchester was poor and beaten by his daddy.  
  
And everyone knew it.  
  
And that was how everything fell apart.  
  
Suddenly, Dean was laughed at when he walked through school. People would turn away and whisper behind their hands as he passed. They'd stare and they wouldn't smile or giggle or make excited gestures. Now they pointed and gave him nervous looks. He was unpredictable, they'd decided. Someone who was as damaged as he was? They had to have some pent up rage and who knew when it would all suddenly break free?  
  
For the first few days, Lisa tried to talk to him, but when he pushed her away and told her that he hadn't changed his mind, that he still needed to be alone, she finally started to actually leave him alone. He wouldn't know until later – much later – that even after this, she still told off anyone who made fun of him or his brother for what had happened to them.  
  
It was shortly after this that Dean learned this what Sam had endured at school regularly.  
  
At first, it didn't make much sense and he was too confused to really get angry. He didn't get why people were telling him he was weak and worthless 'like his brother'. Why would they ever think Sammy was weak and worthless? Especially when these people were supposed to be his brother's  _friends_? And then it dawned on him. They weren't Sam's friends. They never had been. And this was the treatment Sam got from them day to day.  
  
The realization shattered Dean's whole world a second time and made his brother's suicide attempt make that much more sense. It wasn't just because of Jess's murder and the sexual abuse that his brother tried to end his life. It was also because of the bullies at school – the bullies Dean had never known about nor tried to stop until now – that Sam had taken a razor to his wrist.  
  
The thought that these people had driven his brother to try to die and yet still kept laughing about it, made him sick to his stomach.  
  
It was also why one day as he was walking down his hall, he pushed one of them up against a row of lockers. The locks clattered against the lockers as he did it. The lockers themselves rattled in their steel frames. The boy he had pressed up against them had a mop of mousy brown hair and dark brown eyes. They'd been filled with laughter and malice a moment ago. Now, with Dean's arm pressed against his throat, they were filled with fear. Dean didn't bother trying to hold back his smirk.  
  
"Is this what you used to do to my little brother?" he asked through gritted teeth. "Treat him like shit for no reason other than he's smarter than you? Did you really think you could get away with it forever?"  
  
"You n-never noticed," the boy stammered, regaining some of his courage. Dean saw a flash of it in his eyes. "In eight years, you never noticed."  
  
The smirk vanished from Dean's face and he leaned into the arm digging into the boy's windpipe. He let out a gasp as the air whooshed out of his lungs. Dean was barely holding back the rage and hate he felt. "Game's up," he half growled. "When my brother comes back to school, if you lay one fucking finger on him, if you say one fucking word to him, I will kill you, got that?"  
  
The crowd surrounding them laughed nervously.  
  
Dean whirled around, loosening the pressure on the boy's neck by a fraction. "Does it look like I'm joking?" he shouted at them. "Do you really think I won't do it?"  
  
Everyone stopped laughing instantly.  
  
Dean smirked again. "That's what I fucking thought."  
  
He released the boy he'd been holding up against the lockers without looking back at him once. He hoisted his backpack up onto his shoulder and walked off to his next class. He half expected to get called down to the principal's office sometime during that class, but it never happened. He thought this was because the principal didn't want to put more on his plate after having been taken from his home to a foster home and finding his brother bleeding to death in their bathroom. He didn't know it was actually because the boy he'd threatened was too scared to tell anyone what had happened.  
  
The minute the last bell rang, Dean was out of his seat and heading to his car. He wanted to visit Sam at the hospital. He wasn't sure if the patients in the psychiatric unit were allowed visitors the same as the patients in the other wards, but he was going to try anyway. The last thing Sammy needed was to be completely alone right now.  
  
With the rush hour traffic on the highways, it took Dean almost an hour to get from the high school to the hospital. Halfway there, he started screaming at the cars in front of him, telling them to get the fuck out of his way and then, with no warning at all, he started sobbing. He didn't even know why. Maybe it was just the buildup of the last few days, finally reacting to the fact that the father he knew was bad, but didn't think was this terrible was going to prison. Or maybe it was something else altogether. He cried the rest of the way to the hospital, knowing there were only strangers in traffic to see him. By the time he pulled into the hospital parking lot, his eyes were dry and he didn't look like he'd been crying at all. He wasn't going to let Sammy see he'd been crying. Not when he needed him to be strong.  
  
The hospital didn't look as imposing in the daylight as it did in the dark. He remembered when he'd rushed into the emergency room, having tailed the ambulance from the house, trying to make sure that Sam was going to be alright. The façade was red bricks with stainless steel automatic doors and windows. The interior, he knew, was much less homey and made of whitewashed cinderblocks.  
  
Letting out a breath of air, he pulled himself out of his car and walked through the doors to the lobby. He checked the hospital directory, mounted on the wall near the door. The psychiatric unit was on the first floor past the emergency room. He walked through the halls until he came to a pair of locked double doors with a woman sitting at a desk in front of them.  
  
"I'm here to see Sam Winchester," he said to the woman at the desk.  
  
She looked up slowly. "Excuse me?" she asked, seeming confused.  
  
"My brother. Sam Winchester," Dean said, thinking the woman might have misheard him. "He's in that ward." He pointed to the double doors. "I'm here to see him."  
  
The woman seemed to understand then and nervous superficial smile spread across her lips. "I see. No one must have told you," she said gently.  
  
Dean's anxiety spiked and he swallowed hard, glancing at the double doors. There were small windows set into them, crisscrossed with wire. He could see a few people milling around behind them, but not much more than that. "Told me what?" he asked warily.  
  
"Visitors aren't allowed in the psychiatric unit," the woman said. "Not unless they're a parent or guardian and even then only on certain days of the week."  
  
His eyes flicked from the double doors back to the woman and he glared. "We don't have a parent or guardian," he replied through gritted teeth. "Our dad is in prison. Our mom is dead.  _I'm_  all he has! Why can't you just let me in to see him? He just tried to kill himself! He needs me!"  
  
The woman's plastic smile faltered slightly, but didn't drop. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I can't allow you in to see him."  
  
For a few brief moments, Dean thought about throwing a fit. He thought about kicking the doors and demanding to see his brother until a doctor, a more understanding doctor, came by and let him through. However, the downside to doing that was that more likely the woman would call security and they would just throw him out of the hospital and all he would've accomplished was making himself look like an idiot.  
  
Giving the woman standing guard at the doors to the psychiatric unit another withering look, he turned on his heel and strode out of the hospital, his hands balled into fists, his nails biting into his palms. When he got to his car, he ripped open the door and tugged it shut behind him with such force that it rattled in its frame. For several long minutes, he sat in his car. It started to rain and it wasn't until the cement of the parking lot was darkened completely by it that he finally started the car and pulled out of the lot.  
  
As he drove back down the freeway, heading towards the foster home he was now staying in, the tears he'd shed on the drive to the hospital came back. Every time he blinked, he saw Sam lying in a pool of his own blood in their dirty little bathroom. He remembered how pale and still his brother had looked and how much blood there had been.  
  
Dean pressed a hand to his mouth at the thought, feeling suddenly sick.  
  
 _Oh god. There was so much blood._  
  
He hadn't even thought someone as small as Sam could bleed that much. When he'd seen him, he'd been certain he was dead. There was no way that his little baby brother could still be alive after having bled that much.  
  
But he had been. And somehow he'd survived.  
  
Thank heaven for small miracles.  
  
Continuing down the freeway, Dean passed the exit he was supposed to take to get to the foster home. Instead, he took the next one. He wound through the streets until he reached the mouth of an alley only a few blocks from the house he and Sammy used to live in. He shut off the car and checked the time.  
  
4:05  
  
It was too early in the day for anything real to be going on, but he figured he might as well try. He needed to get out his frustrations somehow.  
  
Getting out of the car, he locked the doors and walked down the alleyway, knocking twice on a door halfway down. To his complete and utter surprise, Rufus answered almost instantly. He seemed just as shocked to see Dean as Dean was to see him.  
  
"Winchester?" he asked, opening the door all the way. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
"You know what I'm doing here, Rufus," Dean replied, stuffing his hands into his pockets.  
  
Rufus sighed heavily like he was disappointed Dean was there to begin with. "There ain't no fights going on until around midnight. That's when the first one starts. You know that."  
  
Dean swallowed hard. "Is there anything else I can do?"  
  
The older man shook his head. "Nothing I'm going to let you do."  
  
This response took Dean slightly by surprise. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I heard about what happened to your brother," Rufus said softly. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you with him?"  
  
"Because they won't let me see him," Dean said around a lump his throat, wondering vaguely how Rufus, of all people, had heard about what had happened to Sam.  
  
Rufus shook his head again. "Go home, Dean. You deserve better than this life."  
  
Dean opened his mouth to protest, to tell Rufus that no, he didn't because if he'd just paid a little bit more attention, he would've seen that his brother was suffering, but by the time any of this came to mind, the door was closed and Dean was staring at the peeling green paint, wondering why he'd thought it was a good idea to come here in the first place.  
  
Turning around for the second time that day, he went back to the mouth of the alley and got back into his car. For another several long moments, he said there, watching the rain fall onto the windshield and the hood of the car. He started it and sat there for a little longer, watching the wipers clear away the drops every thirty seconds. Then, finally, he got back onto the freeway and headed back to the foster home.  
  
Sam was in the hospital. He couldn't fight. And everyone at school thought he was a pussy. His entire world was crumbling beneath his feet and there was nothing he could do about it except smile and pretend that he was alright.  
  
But he wasn't alright.  
  
He was shattering too and he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to put himself back together.  
  
 ** _Sam_**  
It was the sound of a door opening that startled Sam out of sleep the next morning. For a moment, he was disoriented, unable to remember where he was or how he got there. He blinked owlishly, surveying the room. He stared at the woman, wearing purple scrubs that set down a tray of food on a small plastic table next to his bed. He propped himself up on one arm and immediately winced. He looked down at his arm, seeing bandages poking out from underneath the shirt he was wearing. He pulled back the sleeve and saw the bandage was wrapped all around his forearm. He pulled back his other sleeve and saw it was much the same, and that was when everything clicked into place, and the sterility, the bandages, and the clothing the woman giving him food was wearing all made sense. Again.  
  
Yesterday he'd woken up in the hospital after he'd attempted suicide by slitting his wrists.  
  
Now he was in the psychiatric unit of the hospital and would be for at least seventy-two hours. Or until they deemed him no longer a danger to himself. He continued staring at the bandages on his arms as the woman who'd given him his breakfast picked up another tray from a cart parked just outside his room, brought it inside, and disappeared behind the curtain that separated his half of the room from his roommate's half of the room. He stared at the curtain. The nurse who'd brought him down here the night before had told him his roommate's name. He was pretty sure it was Jimmy Novak.  
  
"Time for breakfast, Jimmy," he heard the woman say, confirming his suspicions. He started as though he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to and, picking up his fork, turned to his own tray of food.  
  
It didn't look particularly appetizing. The scrambled eggs looked watery. The fruit looked like it'd once been canned. The milk came in a carton similar to one of the ones they gave him in school. The only thing on the tray that even looked edible was the stack of pancakes with a small container of syrup and butter sitting next to them. Sighing, he cut into them and began eating his breakfast. He figured he might as well get used to this food now. He was going to be having it every meal for the foreseeable future.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
Sam started again as the curtain separating the room was torn back and revealed a boy with untidy dark hair, pale skin, sky-colored eyes, and circles beneath them that were so dark, they looked like bruises. The smile on his face, though wide and almost maniacal, was genuine and, had he not been so startled by the boy's appearance, Sam might've smiled back.  
  
"You're new," the boy, whom Sam could only presume was Jimmy Novak, said. "My name is Jimmy. I'm here because I see angels."  
  
He climbed onto Sam's bed, holding his tray, and sat down next to him.  
  
"So, why are you here?" he asked, before he began digging into his breakfast. He ate faster than Sam had ever seen anyone eat in his life.  
  
Turning back to his own unappetizing tray of food, Sam thought about whether or not he should tell this strange boy about why he was here. It was clear that Jimmy had been here for a long time or at least long enough that Sam being new was a big deal. He said he saw angels and, while Sam had never seen things or heard voices, he was sure if he told anyone about the ghost that lurked in walls of his home, he'd be staying here for longer. For all he knew, Jimmy's angels were as real as his ghost. He couldn't judge him without becoming a hypocrite.  
  
Forcing himself to take a bite out of the pancakes, Sam said around the food in his mouth, "I tried to kill myself. That's why I'm here."  
  
For a split second – one so short that Sam was almost certain he'd imagined it – Jimmy paused in bringing food to his mouth, but then he just shrugged and said, "There's a lot of people that do that here. But they're here so they're lucky."  
  
Sam gave the other boy an incredulous look. "How are they lucky?" he asked, struggling to keep the ice out of his tone.  
  
Jimmy only looked at him. "Because they didn't die."  
  
Once they'd finished their breakfast, Jimmy informed Sam that it was time for group. Group was always held after mealtimes. Individual sessions with a therapist were once a day or once every other day depending on how 'at risk' the doctors running the unit felt you were. Throughout the rest of the day, there were activities that you could take place in such as arts and crafts, movie showings in the living room, cooking activities in the small kitchen, and other such things. All of them were supervised, of course, and none of them involved any objects with which you could use to hurt yourself or someone else.  
  
Jimmy told Sam all of this on their way to the room where the group therapy sessions were held, impressing Sam with his ability to get in so much information with so few breaths in between. He spoke very fast and seemed equally impressed that Sam could seemingly keep up with what he was saying.  
  
The room the group therapy sessions were held in was just as bland and sterile as the rest of the unit with white linoleum flooring, fluorescent lights, and walls painted a deep plum color. There were a few couches pushed up against the walls and some fake plants in the corners, but other than that, the only things in the room were a large circular table and chairs surrounding it.  
  
Jimmy took a seat at the table and Sam sat next to him. Slowly, other kids their age filtered into the room, Jimmy whispering their names and why they were there in Sam's ear. Sam didn't really pay attention to any except the first – girl with flaming red hair and deep brown eyes named Anna Milton, whose official diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia, but was there because she heard voices – and the last – a pair of twins with dark hair and eyes by the name of Ruby and Meg who were there because they had a little too much fun torturing ants with a magnifying glass and decided to try doing worse things to bigger animals.  
  
While Anna, even with her nervous shaking and constant searching of the room, as though she were trying to see something everyone else couldn't, didn't bother Sam at all, the twins made him uneasy. They sat in their chairs, moving oddly in sync with one another, constantly whispering to each other behind their hands, looking at people as they did so. More than once, their dark eyes landed on him and he blinked quickly, looking away, not wanting them to know he'd been looking at them too.  
  
Finally, after nearly every chair at the table was filled, a man wearing scrubs and holding a pile of manila folders and some books with spiral bindings walked into the room. He took a seat at the table and smiled at all of them.  
  
"Good morning! How is everyone this morning?" he asked.  
  
Everyone gave half-hearted replies. The smile on the man's face was so large that Sam half expected him to make them all give him a proper greeting, but he seemed to have been working there long enough to know that some of them just didn't have that in them this early in the morning. If ever.  
  
"We have a new face here with us today, so we're going to start by introducing ourselves," the man said, staring at Sam. He automatically looked away. "Why don't we say our names and how we're feeling today? I'll start. I'm Bruce and I'm feeling excited."  
  
Bruce was the only one that was feeling excited. No one else at the table said excited. Most of them said tired or okay after their names and when they got to him, Sam did the same. He said he was feeling okay. Dean's words kept echoing in his head.  
  
 _You're going to stay here until they decide you're no longer a danger to yourself._  
  
Sam had to convince them he was okay. He might as well start now.  
  
Once they'd finished introductions, Bruce opened the manila folder on the top of the pile he'd been carrying and began passing out worksheets and pens.  
  
"Today we're going to list all of the emotions we've felt in the past week," he said. "Then we're going to pick two to analyze and discuss as a group. Try to pick one positive emotion and one negative emotion that you've felt this week for the discussion."  
  
Sam stared at the worksheet when he got it. It reiterated everything Bruce had just said at the top. There were several lines where he could list up to ten emotions and then beneath that were several more lines where he would be able to analyze two of them. The instructions suggested he try thinking of what led up to each emotion.  
  
He swallowed.  
  
Bruce had said one positive and one negative emotion.  
  
He was here because he'd tried to kill himself. Bruce had to know that. He was sure all of the nurses and doctors were informed of the reason behind everyone's being here. If he put a neutral emotion and a positive emotion, he didn't think Bruce would buy it. But he also didn't think it was a good idea to choose two emotions he'd  _really_  had. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had any sort of positive emotion.  
  
No. That wasn't true. The last time he felt any sort of positive emotion had been before Jess died. That night when they'd sat out under the only working streetlight on the block. He'd felt positive emotions then. He'd felt…happy.  
  
He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed again.  
  
Either way he was going to have to share. He might as well be somewhat honest.  
  
The emotions he decided to analyze were 'suicidal' and 'happy'. The happiness had happened more than a week ago and had been so very brief, but it'd been real and it'd been the only time Sam had felt happy that he could ever remember.  
  
And he couldn't help but wondering if Jess were here if she'd be proud of him.  
  
Or if she'd just be disappointed that he had to do this to begin with.


	14. Day Three

_**Dean**_  
There was blood everywhere. It painted the linoleum tiles a bright crimson, it was splashed on the underside of the white porcelain bowl of the toilet, and there were even droplets going up the wall. At the center of the ocean of red lay a boy with blood smeared all up and down his arms. It even covered the tips of some of his fingers. The pool itself was so large that it got in the ends of his slightly too-long dark hair and stained the edges of the shirt that he was wearing.  
  
Dean stood frozen in the doorway, his hand clutching the knob in a white knuckled grip as his dark eyes widened with alarm. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed and he staggered back a couple of steps, hitting the wall just inside the bathroom door. He raised shaking hands to his head, pulling at the ends of his hair as he took great gasping breaths, taking in the horror of the scene before him. He opened his mouth and screamed as loud as he could.  
  
The bathroom fell away and Dean's eyes snapped open in another room.  
  
Sitting bolt upright, he found himself covered in a thin sheen of sweat, looking around. The dream had felt so real, he temporarily forgot where he was. But he remembered now. He was at the foster home and this room was dark with only moonlight shining in through the window.  
  
He was breathing heavily and his sheets were twisted around his legs. He'd thrown the comforter off at some point and now it lay on the floor between his bed and the one that Sam would occupy once he got out of the hospital.  
  
Dean's jaw clenched as he struggled to hold back tears.  
  
He wasn't an emotional person, but every single time he thought about his little brother, all he could see was the pool of blood that he'd been lying in when he'd broken down the bathroom door. All he could think of was what their father had been doing to him for years when Dean had been out of the house. All he could imagine was how that coupled with the bullying at school had weighed on Sammy for years and years and he'd never said a word to him about it and he still didn't know why.  
  
That was what haunted him the most.  
  
Why hadn't Sam told him what was going on? What had he said or done that had made his brother think he couldn't talk to him about the abuse or Jess or the bullying? And if Sam had told him, what would he have even done? Talked to the police about the abuse? Threatened the bullies? Tried to tell him how to help Jess?  
  
Dean liked to think he would've done all of those things, but the truth was he didn't know because he'd done nothing.  
  
_You didn't know what was going on,_  a voice in his head reassured him.  
  
_But that's no excuse,_  he retorted, knotting his fingers in his hair, bowing his head between his knees, and shutting his eyes tightly.  _I should've been able to figure it out._  
  
Looking up, Dean checked the digital clock that sat on the nightstand between his bed and the one Sam would eventually occupy.  
  
It read 5:43.  
  
He swore softly.  
  
He had to get up and get ready for school in less than an hour. He had to go downstairs and have breakfast with the other foster kids that were his age, living in this house too.  
  
Dean didn't hate the other foster kids. He didn't even mind them. He just hated the way they looked at him. Like he was different from them in some way. He was willing to bet everything he owned that they weren't. He was willing to bet that they'd been through something similar and that was how they'd wound up here. Or maybe they'd been born into the system. Either way they weren't all that different and it frustrated and annoyed him that they seemed to think they were.  
  
Maybe it was because Sam was still in the hospital and maybe when he was discharged, they'd stop looking at him like he was some sort of freak. But odds were the looks wouldn't stop. They'd just shift. Only this time they'd be directed at his brother instead of him.  
  
Dean promised himself then he'd deck any kid that looked at Sam funny.  
  
His brother had been through enough.  
  
The time was now 5:53. The sun was already shining on the horizon. He couldn't see it over the roofs of the surrounding houses, but it was shining through his window, lighting up the beige carpeting. He stared at the light on the floor, watching the way the light shifted as leaves of the trees just outside blew in the wind.  
  
Less than a week ago, he'd been waking up in his own bed in his own house.  
  
The house with the ghost that lived in the wallpaper of his parents' bedroom.  
  
The house with carpets so dirty that they were permanently stained.  
  
The house with peeling white paint and a single working streetlight outside.  
  
The house where his brother tried to kill himself and was raped by their father.  
  
He shut his eyes and clenched his jaw.  
  
He'd been trying not to think about it, trying not to imagine the man that had once loved them both more than world hurting his little brother like that, but every time he thought of the life he used to have, he would think of the life Sam used to have to. And, though there were aspects of their old life he missed, he knew none of that mattered. Not when it was compared with the hell Sam had been forced to endure.  
  
Dean threw back the sheets and forced himself to get out of bed. He went to the closet and pulled out a shirt and a pair of pants. He pulled them on and reminded himself over and over again, this was his home now. The old house was being refurbished and put up for sale. That wasn't his home anymore and it never would be again.  
  
"This is your home now," he whispered to the mirror as he brushed his teeth. "And it's Sam's home too. Sam won't be hurt here. That's good. This is your home now."  
  
But it didn't matter how many times he said it. It still felt like a lie.  
  
And he didn't really think it would ever feel like the truth.  
  
**_Sam_**  
After having been in the hospital for three days, Sam was starting to get used to the way things were run, the people he was spending his time with, and lying.  
  
From day one, Jimmy had told him that he needed to lie if he wanted to leave soon.  
  
"They're not going to buy that you're doing so well after only seventy-two hours," Jimmy had whispered the first night after lights out as they were lying in their beds, trying to fall asleep. "They'll probably keep you for a week, but only if you lie. You have to lie. You have to tell them that you tried to kill yourself in a moment of stupidity and that you realize it was a stupid mistake. You have to tell them that you don't want to kill yourself anymore, even if you do. They can't make you tell the truth, but they can decide whether or not they believe you. You have to make them believe you and to do that, you have to act happy, even when you don't want to."  
  
So he had. For the past three days, Sam had been acting happy. Even when it hurt. Even when he thought of Jess and the way she'd died and how she'd looked when he'd pulled back the sheet on the gurney. He forced himself to smile. He forced himself to participate in group activities, to talk during group, to be honest about his feelings sometimes, but not all the time. He forced himself to talk to his therapist and to the other kids. He forced himself to laugh.  
  
Every single time he did it, it hurt, but he did it anyway.  
  
He hated doing it, but he hated being in the hospital more. He wanted to get out, to get back to Dean, back to the life he knew.  
  
_But that life is gone,_ a voice reminded him late one night as he stared at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep.  _Whatever life you go to when you get out of here will not be the same life you left behind. Everything has changed now._  
  
Sam knew the voice was right. Everything had changed. But the one thing that would have stayed the same, he knew, was Dean. He would still have him. And that was what mattered now. That was all that mattered now.  
  
Now he'd been here for three days. He only had to survive a few more.  
  
"Sam? Are you listening to me?"  
  
Sam jumped, coming out of his thoughts.  
  
He was sitting in group and the therapist was looking at him expectantly along with nearly everyone else seated at the table. Except for Jimmy who was scribbling furiously with crayons in a coloring book.  
  
Sam swallowed, feeling anxious with the eyes of nearly everyone in the room on him. "I'm sorry," he said, forcing a nervous smile, "can you repeat the question?"  
  
"I asked how you're feeling today?" the therapist said.  
  
"I'm feeling pretty good," he said. "I'm going to be seeing my brother again soon hopefully, so I'm excited and feel good." He smiled for good measure.  
  
The therapist seemed satisfied with his answer and moved on to asking Anna, who was staring around the room while playing with the ends of her hair, the same question.  
  
Sam stared at her and wondered how long she'd been there. She, along with Jimmy and the twins, Ruby and Meg, all seemed like they'd been there for a long time and weren't going home any time soon. He wondered when her parents decided she needed to be sent to the hospital. He wondered if they knew she was going to be there for a long time. He wondered if they thought when they first sent her here that she would be here for so long. He wondered if they thought that she would lie her way out. He wondered most of all why she hadn't. But maybe her home situation was like what his had been and she felt she was better off being here than back home.  
  
"Today we're going to be drawing pictures of how we imagine our hearts to look," the therapist said, standing. She picked up a stack of paper and several boxes of crayons and began walking around the table, placing them in front of the kids seated around the table. "You can draw whatever you want as long as it's what you think your heart looks like."  
  
As the therapist placed the piece of paper and box of crayons in front of Sam, he wondered how he was going to fake his way through this one. If he drew the truth, there was every chance the therapist would show it to the head doctors and he'd be kept for longer than a week. If he lied, they would know. Every doctor here knew why he'd been admitted. They'd seen the bandages on his arms and knew the situation he'd come from. Drawing a perfect heart would be a lie and everyone here knew it, but drawing a heart as Sam imagined his must look after everything that had happened in the last couple weeks alone was out of the question. Especially if he wanted to get out of here by the end of the week.  
  
He glanced over at Jimmy's paper. He hadn't stopped drawing since the therapist placed the paper and box of crayons in front of him, not that Sam had seen, but he'd drawn the outline of a heart on the paper the therapist had given him. Other than that, the paper was a mess of colors and shapes. It looked like something a five year old would've drawn rather than someone closer to Jimmy's age.  
  
Turning back to his own piece of paper, Sam stared at the blank page. He picked up a red crayon and began drawing.  
  
Maybe the image he had in his own mind of his heart wasn't what he could put on this paper, but he could draw what it was going to be.  
  
That hopeful thought surprised him, and, for a moment, he paused, still staring at the paper, wondering why it'd popped into his head to begin with.  
  
He shook his head and continued drawing. When he finished, he had a picture of a heart that was torn and broken in places, but that had bandages and stitches in it to show he was healing. He held the picture away from his face and admired the finished product. It was perfect, exactly what would help him get out of here in another day or two.  
  
After handing in his picture to the therapist and faking a smile when she told him how beautiful his work was, he clenched his hands into fists and walked swiftly down the hall towards his bedroom. He needed to be alone. He didn't know why. The drawing had taken a lot out of him.  
  
He turned into his room and blinked.  
  
Jess was standing in his room.  
  
He knew it was a hallucination because he'd seen her dead. He knew she was gone. But the image before him was so real that he stopped up short and gasped. She was wearing a white summer dress. He'd never seen her wear anything like that before, but she was wearing it now. She was twirling back and forth in his and Jimmy's room, watching the way her skirt billowed out each time she moved.  
  
Sam shut the door behind him and Jess looked up. Her face broke into a smile.  
  
"You came," she said, her grin widening even further, "even though you're about to break." She took a step towards him. Sam didn't move. She placed a hand on his arm. It felt so real. He closed his eyes. "That's a good sign, hm?"  
  
She took her hand away and Sam opened his eyes again, but she wasn't in front of him anymore. She was standing with her back pressed to his.  
  
"So," she said, "why did you come?"  
  
It was an odd question. But then again, this whole conversation was odd. It reminded him of the conversations his father would have with the ghost in the room at the end of the hall.  
  
Sam swallowed. "I think," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper, "I want to be forgiven." He nodded as the truth of it settled into him. What had happened to Jess was his fault. If he'd gotten there a little sooner, if he'd stayed with her a little longer…none of this ever would've happened. "More than…anything."  
  
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "By who?"  
  
Sam turned, wanting to see the look on Jess's face, but she was gone. He was alone in the room again and he was left with her question.  
  
_By who?_  
  
_You!_  He wanted to say.  _I should've been able to save you and you know that. That's why I feel like this. That's why I'm in here. Because I couldn't save you and I can't live with myself anymore and I need you to forgive me for letting you die_.  
  
But Jess was gone again and he was alone again.  
  
Sam collapsed onto the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands.  
  
_Just a few more days_ , he told himself.  _Then you can go home._  
  
But it wouldn't even be home. And, other than that, he wasn't sure anything really was going to have changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did get the idea for Jess's ghost and what she says from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.


	15. Day Five

**_Sam_**  
It was on the morning of the fifth day of Sam's hospital stay that a nurse came into his room during breakfast and said, "Your therapist wants to talk with you once you finish your breakfast, Sam."  
  
Forcing a smile and nodding, Sam continued to eat his watery eggs and pancakes.  
  
Jimmy poked his head around the curtain. He was holding his plate of pancakes in one hand and stuffing them into his mouth with the other. He took a seat at the end of Sam's bed and said, "You're leaving today."  
  
Sam glanced at him. "Why do you say that?"  
  
The other boy shrugged as he cut another large bite of pancake. "That's what the nurses always say before someone gets discharged." He moved the pancake around in the syrup and shoved it into his mouth. "Just watch. This time tomorrow you'll be at home in your own bed."  
  
Once he finished his breakfast, like the nurse said, he padded down the hallway to where the therapist spent her days. He'd never seen her leave her office. He wondered if she spent her whole day seeing messed up kids or if she did something else in between. He didn't know what she could be doing locked up in this office all day other than seeing kids, but then again, he also didn't really know how mental hospitals worked or what kinds of things the therapists working in them were required to do.  
  
Letting out a breath and half hoping Jimmy's prediction was correct, he knocked on the door. Almost instantly, it swung open, revealing the woman he'd been seeing every day after group. She was as old as he thought his mother would be were she alive, wore black slacks and suit jackets, had chestnut colored hair that barely brushed her shoulders, and a smile that never quite seemed to reach her eyes.  
  
"Hello Sam," she said. "Come in!" She held the door open and he stepped around her into the office. She shut the door behind him and took a seat in the swivel chair by her desk while he took a seat on the couch that was pressed up against the wall opposite the desk.  
  
"How are you feeling, Sam?" she asked, pulling a yellow notepad off of her desk and clicking open a pen. She looked at him expectantly.  
  
Sam took a breath and smiled. "I've been better," he said, "but I feel a lot better than I did when I first was admitted." The first part was true. The second part was a lie. Nothing had changed in his mind since he'd been admitted. He just wanted to go home.  
  
The therapist wrote something down on the notepad before looking up at him and saying, "I know it's only been five days, but how would you feel about going home today?"  
  
Sam tried to look surprised, and a part of him was, despite what Jimmy had said. After only five days in the hospital, they were letting him walk free? It almost sounded too good to be true and he'd learned that in his life if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was. "Really?" he asked. "I can go home today?"  
  
The therapist smiled at him. "Yes," she said. "You've been doing really well and I think that as long as you continue to see a therapist outside of the hospital, it would be okay if you went home today. You could go home with your brother once he gets finished with school for the day."  
  
This time the smile that broke out on Sam's face was a little less forced. "Yes!" he said. "I would love to go home with my brother. I miss him a lot."  
  
"Then it's settled," she said, sitting back in her chair. "You can go home today as long as you continue seeing your school therapist on the side. I'll call your school today and make sure they let your brother know that he can come pick you up once school is let out."  
  
Sam forced one last smile, thanked the therapist for her time and all she'd done for him during the past few weeks, before he left her office and headed back to his room.  
  
"Sammy, where are you going?" Jimmy's voice called out.  
  
He looked up. The boy was waving at him from down the hall towards the group room.  
  
"It's time for group!"  
  
"Oh, yeah," Sam said almost to himself, shaking himself slightly. He changed directions and headed towards the group room.  
  
Once he got close enough, Jimmy pulled him closer and whispered, "So? Was I right? Are you going home today?"  
  
Sam nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "My brother is coming to pick me up after school."  
  
Jimmy didn't say anything else, but he sighed heavily and Sam wondered not for the first time just how long Jimmy had been there.  
  
"Today we're going to be talking about forgiveness," the therapist running the group for that day said. Sam noticed it was the same man who had been running the group when he first was admitted into the hospital. Bruce. "And instead of talking about who you are forgiving, we're going to talk about who you would like to forgive you for something you've done. You don't have to say why you want them to forgive you if you don't want to. You can just tell us their name when it's your turn."  
  
Sam swallowed hard. This was not the group he wanted to be a part of the day he was supposed to be getting out of the hospital. He would have to talk about Jess. He didn't want to talk about Jess. Because she was the only person he could think of that he wished could forgive him. He'd let her die. He hadn't done anything to save her when he should have. He closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them, Anna was already talking about how she wanted her little brother to forgive her for everything she'd put him through in the past year.  
  
Next was Jimmy, who also talked about his siblings. Then the twins, who couldn't think of anyone they wanted to forgive them. Then a new girl whose name Sam learned was Bela Talbot. She only said her mother. Then it was Sam's turn. He swallowed. He wanted to give only a name, but if he was supposed to be doing so much better, wouldn't he have to explain?  
  
"Jess," he said softly. "Jessica Moore."  
  
He didn't say anything else.  
  
Once group was finished, he went back to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, images of Jess, of how he'd seen her the night she died, replaying in his mind.  
  
He heard a sigh and looked up.  
  
Jess was sitting on the edge of Jimmy's bed, picking at a loose string on her white dress.  
  
"That wasn't fair," she said, not looking at him. "That wasn't a real answer."  
  
Sam swallowed. He knew what she meant. Saying her name in group. She thought that wasn't fair. He didn't know why. "But…I let you die," he said softly, staring at his hands.  
  
She sighed again. "Dilly dally, shilly shally, isn't it time you did the forgiving?"  
  
When Sam looked up again, she was gone.  
  
 ** _Dean_**  
During Dean's last class of the day, the principal poked his head into his classroom and said to his teacher, "I need to speak with Dean Winchester."  
  
Every head in the room turned to him. Dean heard snickers at the back of the classroom, but he ignored them. He just stared at his teacher until she nodded. He got up and started to gather up his books, but the principal said, "We'll only be a second. You don't need to bring your things with you."  
  
He set his belongings back down and followed the principal out into the hall.  
  
"How're things going, Dean?" the principal asked once the door swung shut behind them.  
  
He shrugged one shoulder. "Good, I guess." He didn't elaborate. The last thing he wanted to do was talk with his principal about the direction his life was currently headed in.  
  
"I got a call from the hospital Sam is in."  
  
Dean had been staring absentmindedly down the hallway, but the minute the principal said Sam's name, his eyes snapped back to his face. "Has something happened? Is he okay?"  
  
"Your brother's just fine," the principal reassured him. "In fact, it sounded like he's doing better than fine. They said that he's good to be sent home. They want you to pick him up today once you get done with school. That's what I came to tell you."  
  
Dean let out a gasping breath. Sam was able to come home? Today? He'd only been in the hospital for five days and already they were saying he could come home? He wanted to question it. He wanted to know why in the world Sam was being let out of the hospital so soon after he'd slit his wrists, but he'd missed his little brother. He'd missed falling asleep to the sound of his breathing. He'd missed seeing his mussed up morning hair and the way he looked in his too big hand-me-down hoodies. He'd missed Sam and he wanted him home. He was tempted to ask to leave early, but he doubted that even after everything he'd been through, the principal wasn't going to let him leave school early.  
  
After saying goodbye to the principal and thanking him for telling him about Sam, he went back into class and stared at the clock, watching the minutes tick slowly by. He had less than thirty minutes before the final bell rang, but every second felt like twice that.  
  
 _Soon you'll be seeing Sammy again,_  he reminded himself over and over again. _You'll be bringing Sammy home and everything is going to be okay._  
  
 _Everything isn't how it was before,_  a voice whispered in the back of his mind.  
  
He closed his eyes briefly. That voice had been there before, telling him the same thing only two days ago when he'd woken up from that awful nightmare. He knew it was right, but he wanted so badly to believe that everything truly was going to be okay.  
  
But he wasn't the kind of person that got that kind of happiness.  
  
He wasn't the kind of person that truly got to have everything be okay.  
  
Not anymore.  
  
The bell rang, pulling Dean out of his thoughts so quickly that he jumped. He blinked. Everyone around him was gathering their books together and leaving. The teacher had long since written the homework on the board. He copied it down quickly, gathered up all of his books, and darted out of the classroom, heading straight for the student parking lot. He didn't even bother stopping at his locker on the way. He dumped his books in the passenger seat of his car and peeled out of the parking lot, heading for the hospital.  
  
The drive to the hospital took almost an hour and a half with rush hour traffic, but to Dean it felt like it took five times that. When he finally pulled into the hospital parking lot, he realized he was shaking and he wasn't sure if that was from excitement at getting to see Sam again and bring him home or something else entirely. Something he really didn't want to spend too much time thinking about.  
  
Walking in the main entrance of the hospital, he didn't need to check to see which floor the psychiatric unit was on. He'd been visiting the hospital almost every day after school anyway just to see if he could see Sam, if by some miracle the rules had changed or if the woman standing guard at the entrance to the unit would let him in today. The rules never changed and she never did, but he returned each day anyway. Now he wouldn't have to worry about that. Now he would be able to take Sam home. He could bring him back where he belonged: with him.  
  
Once he got to the entrance of the psychiatric unit, he swallowed and glanced at the woman. She didn't even bother looking up from her book today.  
  
"I'm taking my brother home," he said, raising his chin slightly. "You have to let me in today, so I can go get him."  
  
"They'll bring him out to you," she said without looking up from her book. "There's no reason you need to go into the unit. You're not allowed in anyway."  
  
Dean clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists. He wanted to yell at this woman, give him a piece of his mind, tell her everything he and his brother had been through and then dare her to keep him from Sam for one more second, but he didn't. As much as he wanted to, he didn't. He knew that wouldn't help anything.  
  
For a split second, Lisa's smiling face appeared in his mind and he heard her voice say,  _Wow. Dean Winchester, growing up. Shocking. Nice, but shocking._  
  
He closed his eyes briefly, mentally shaking himself. He'd ended it with Lisa. He wasn't getting her back. He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him as they passed in the hallways at school. He might as well try to push her out of his mind too.  
  
The clock on the wall ticked fifteen minutes by before the door to the psychiatric unit opened and out came Sam along with a woman whom he could only assume was Sam's therapist. There was a smile on Sam's face and, for a brief moment, Dean felt hope surge in his chest, but then he realized: the smile didn't meet Sam's eyes. This was all for show.  
  
Swallowing hard, he forced a smile of his own and looked at the therapist. She smiled back at him and stretched out her hand.  
  
"You must be Sam's big brother, Dean," she said, grinning. Dean wasn't sure he bought her smile either. "I'm Dr. Mayfair. It's a pleasure to meet you."  
  
Taking her hand and shaking it, he replied, "It's a pleasure to meet you too." He glanced at his brother who was standing slightly off to the side. He was staring out the nearby window with an absentminded look on his face. Dean swallowed again and returned his attention to Dr. Mayfair. "Is there anything I should know before I take him home?"  
  
"Just that he needs to keep seeing the school therapist," she said. "He's doing much better than he was when he was admitted and I think that as long as he keeps seeing the school therapist, he'll continue doing well and everything will go back to normal very quickly."  
  
 _He wasn't doing well before this either,_  Dean thought, looking at Sam again.  _Going 'back to normal' wouldn't really be good._  
  
But he didn't say this.  
  
Instead, he smiled at Dr. Mayfair, thanked her for taking care of his brother, and began leading Sam back towards the car. Sam gave her another one of his artificial smiles and waved goodbye. She waved back. And then the smile dropped from his face like it'd never been there to begin with. Dean didn't mention it. He just led Sam to the car.  
  
 _If they're letting him out, there has to be a reason,_  he thought as they got in the car and headed out of the hospital parking lot. _They're not just letting him go just cause. He really must be doing better. Otherwise they'd be keeping him longer. He has to be doing better._  
  
But even in his head, the words sounded like a desperate plea, like he was trying to convince himself more than telling himself the truth.  
  
As he turned onto the freeway, heading in the direction of the foster home, he glanced at Sam. He was sitting slumped against the passenger door, staring out the window and Dean couldn't help thinking this was exactly how he'd looked in his car the day of Jessica's funeral, the day he'd tried to kill himself.  
  
He glanced at Sam's wrists and could see the gauze bandages still poking out from under the shirt he was wearing. He wondered when they'd finally be able to come off. He wondered if there was any hope of his brother's arms looking remotely the same ever again.  
  
"So the place we're staying at is pretty nice," he said, forcing his eyes back onto the road. "We get to share a room because there's not enough room in the house for every foster kid that lives there to have their own room, but it's okay. Our room is a lot bigger than the room in our old house and our beds are more comfortable."  
  
"It won't be the same," Sam said softly.  
  
This made Dean look at him.  
  
"Yeah?" he said. "So? That's a good thing, right? I mean after…after everything that happened, isn't that a good thing?"  
  
Sam shrugged.  
  
Dean turned his eyes back to the road.  
  
Sam whispered one more time, so softly he almost didn't hear it, "It won't be the same."  
  
"But that's a good thing," he replied almost instantly, his voice significantly louder than his little brother's.  
  
But he wasn't really sure he believed it and he wasn't really sure why.


	16. Fin

**_Dean_**  
It had been two weeks. Two weeks, three days, sixteen hours, and eighteen minutes since Sam had left the hospital, supposedly doing better, supposedly fine, but as far as Dean could tell, his brother was just as silent, just as sad, just as broken as he'd been when he'd been admitted into the hospital. And he wasn't sure if he was frustrated at the doctor's for releasing his brother when he clearly wasn't doing as well as he had them all believing or at his brother for still being so caught up in his own head when everything about their lives had improved.  
  
They were living in a palace compared to the dump they'd been living in before. Their father wasn't breathing down their necks and drinking all of their money away. He wasn't touching Sam in ways he wasn't supposed to. He was in prison. Dean didn't have to fight to so they wouldn't have to sweat through the summer. They still had to go to school and deal with the bullies there, so things weren't perfect, but things couldn't ever be perfect. That wasn't possible. But things were just as close to perfect as they possibly could be at this point.  
  
So why was it that Sam still couldn't smile?  
  
Why was it that his frame of mind still hadn't changed?  
  
These were the questions that kept running through Dean's mind as he sat in the kitchen of their foster home, trying to do his homework. He didn't have any friends that wanted to hang out with him after everything that had happened and the house was currently mostly empty, so he figured he might as well at least attempt to do his homework in the brightly lit kitchen before the younger kids came home from school and he would be forced back up into the room he shared with Sam until dinner. The only problem was, he couldn't concentrate. His mind kept wandering back to Sam, who was doing his homework upstairs in their room, who refused to smile despite all of the good things currently in their life, and who Dean didn't know how to help when there was only so much he could change to make things better.  
  
Letting out a sigh of frustration, he slumped in his seat and slammed his math textbook shut, giving up on trying to figure out his calculus homework. He stared out the kitchen window, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line.  
  
The kitchen looked out onto a small lake. He could see a couple of ducks that hadn't yet migrated south swimming across the water. He could see the way the sunlight reflected off the lake, making it look like parts of the water was covered in some sort of glitter. He could see the trees that surrounded the lake swaying lazily in the. It'd yet to get cold this year and it was the middle of November. Everyone was taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather. Except his little brother, who couldn't seem to see past his own sadness to do anything other than sulk.  
  
Closing his eyes and letting out a frustrated breath through his nose, turned away from the window. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring up at the textured ceiling of the kitchen. He hated himself for thinking it, but a part of him wanted to go back to when everything had been simpler, when he would fight for money, when he didn't know what was going on with Sam, when Jess was alive and he was dating Lisa. Everything had been so much easier then.  
  
But Sam had been in agony then and it didn't seem like anything had changed. Even though everything had changed. He wondered how that could be: how everything could feel the same and yet be so different.  
  
The door leading in from the garage opened and he jumped. The other foster kids tromped into the house, backpacks slung on their backs. They were chattering excitedly with each other about everything they'd learned at school that day. Dean scooped up his textbooks and notebooks as quickly as possible and headed upstairs to his and Sam's room. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the afternoon having to listen to the kids talking to each other and ask him questions that he didn't really feel like answering when he was trying to do his homework.  
  
But he also didn't really want to spend the afternoon in his room with Sam in silence either.  
  
He let out a sigh.  
  
Either way he had to go back up to their room to drop off his stuff. He could do his homework later. After dinner. Maybe after Sam had gone to bed.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Dean pushed his way into the room he currently shared with his brother and…found it empty. Sam's textbooks were open on his bed, his notebooks open beside them, but Sam was nowhere to be found.  
  
Dean was just setting down his stuff by the side of his bed when he heard a toilet flush. He whirled around and saw Sam coming out of the bathroom that was connected to their room. Sam didn't see him at first. He was wiping his hands still wet from the sink on his thighs. When he looked up, he froze and swallowed, before he took a small breath and walked around his brother, hopped back up on the bed and continued doing his homework.  
  
For a moment, Dean thought about saying something. He thought about telling him that acting like this wasn't helping anyone, especially him. But instead, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. He went down the stairs and out the back door and didn't stop until he was standing at the edge of the lake, the late afternoon sunlight shining into his eyes.  
  
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Dean was shocked to find that tears were filling his eyes. But it made sense. Sam was crumbling and he wasn't letting him help him. And unless Sam let him, he  _couldn't_  help him. And yet, he still couldn't help feeling like this was his fault. Like if he'd done something different or been a better brother somehow, Sam wouldn't be feeling this way, but he'd done the best he could and Sam was still falling apart.  
  
Dean stayed out by the lake until the sun went down, until he could hear the world that hadn't yet gone into hibernation come to life in the darkness, until his foster mother shouted out the back door that it was dinner time and it was his and Sam's turn to set the table.  
  
The last thing Dean wanted to do was go inside and set the table with his little brother, which would be more awkward than setting it alone with the children sitting around it, screaming at each other and completely ignoring him. But it didn't seem like he had much of a choice.  
  
Forcing himself to his feet, he walked back up the small hill to the house. He walked in the back door and picked up the stack of plates sitting on the counter. Sam had already gotten the silverware and napkins. And as Dean walked around the table, setting empty plates in front of the other children that had already sat down, a voice whispered in his mind, reminding him,  _You can't help him because you're not good enough._  
  
But another voice albeit much smaller, but still audible replied,  _You can't help him because he doesn't want help._  
  
And he wasn't sure which thought scared him more: that Sam could be helped and he just wasn't doing a good enough job or that Sam couldn't be helped because he didn't want to be.  
  
**_Sam_**  
It had been two weeks. Two weeks, three days, nineteen hours, and twelve minutes, since Sam had left the hospital by giving the therapists fake smiles and telling them what they wanted to hear, since he'd come home and his brother had been angry with him because, despite the fact they had everything they could've ever wanted, he couldn't smile.  
  
It'd been even longer since Jess had died.  
  
Sam sat at the dinner table, picking at his spaghetti with Dean sitting across from him, shoveling as much food into his mouth as would fit at one time without choking him. His brother looked up at him once or twice, his eyes moving between his little brother's face and the plate in front of him. He was telling Sam to eat, but Sam didn't want to eat. He wasn't hungry.  
  
It'd been almost three weeks since Jess had her last meal.  
  
The minute their foster mother excused them from the table, Sam bolted up the stairs and into the room he shared with Dean. He'd never minded sharing a room with his brother before, but now it was horrible. Now he had to feel his brother's angry stare on his back every single time they were alone. He had to hear the silence that was caused by all of the words they were both too afraid to say hanging in the air between them. And he had to listen to silence each night as he tried to fall asleep because they were both awake, wondering what they'd done to make so much between them change in such a short period of time.  
  
The door opened quietly, but Sam didn't bother turning around. He pulled open the drawer of their dresser that was pressed up against the wall and sat under the window. He stared out through the slats in the curtains to the darkened street below. He almost thought he could see someone's cat running across the street, but when he blinked it was gone and he wondered if it was just a trick of the streetlights. In this neighborhood, all of them worked.  
  
"When are you going to stop this?"  
  
Dean's voice startled him and brought him out of his thoughts. He turned around and saw his brother standing in the center of the room, one eyebrow raised, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line. If the question hadn't been one that Sam knew he was expected to seriously answer, the image might've almost been comical.  
  
Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Sam pushed the dresser drawer shut again. He swallowed hard and said, "I can't just…change how my mind works, Dean. I can't just be happy all of a sudden. That's not how this works."  
  
"Then how do I make it?" he asked and, to Sam's horror, Dean's voice broke on the last word. He could see his brother's eyes glistening with tears in the dim light that came from the lamp set on the nightstand between their beds.  
  
Sam stared at his brother, riveted by the sight of his brother crying, but Dean blinked and looked away as the tears began to course down his cheeks. He looked all around the room. At the ceiling. The floor. Their beds. Anywhere but at Sam. He didn't want Sam to know he was crying, but Sam would've been able to tell, even if he hadn't been staring at him with eyes the size of saucers. He knew Dean too well.  
  
"There isn't anything you can do," he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "You just…you just have to wait it out."  
  
"But how can you be like this Sam?!" Dean half-shouted at him, throwing his hands out in front of him as though Sam were going to hand him the answer. "Everything is fine now! Everything is fucking  _perfect_ and yet here you are, acting like –"  
  
"Because Jess is still dead, Dean!" Sam shot back, gesturing out the window, a lump growing in his own throat now. "And no matter what I do, no matter what  _you_  do that's still the truth! And the worst thing is I let her die!"  
  
"Sam," Dean said softly, "that wasn't your fault –"  
  
"Don't say that!" Sam shouted, letting out a bitter, hollow laugh. "Don't fucking say that…I could've saved her, Dean. I could've. I could've called the police before her father killed her. I could've saved her. But I didn't. I didn't call the police. I didn't tell anyone what was happening to her because I was a fucking coward and now she's dead."  
  
Sam looked away. He knew that two weeks ago, he never would've said any of this. Two weeks ago, he never would've let Dean know how he really felt about Jess's death. Maybe the hospital really had changed him more than he'd thought.  
  
A hand was on his cheek and when Sam looked up he saw Dean. He looked up at him, confused and scared and wanting to fall into his big brother's arms like he had when he was still running around with scraped knees and rosy cheeks, when Dean could make everything – even what the monster that lived inside their father did – better.  
  
"It wasn't your fault, Sammy," Dean said softly.  
  
"Dean –" Sam started to pull away, feeling frustrated, wishing his brother would listen to him just once, but then Dean did something that Sam never thought he ever would.  
  
Dean pressed him up against the dresser, so their bodies were pressed together and then he crushed his lips against Sam's.  
  
For a moment, Sam was even more confused and scared, but then something inside him settled. It were as though he'd been standing in a storm, a storm that had winds too strong and no way of ever being calmed, but the minute Dean's lips touched his, the storm in him fell silent. And that was when Sam's eyelids fluttered shut and he let Dean kiss him and he kissed him back. He'd never known peace before. Never once. Not until now.  
  
They tore their clothes off each other in a rush. They knew there was a strong chance their foster mother or father or one of their foster siblings would open the door and see them and yet neither one of them seemed to really care.  
  
They were skin against skin and yet, even as Dean moved against him, Sam held him closer, feeling like he couldn't get him to be close enough. Dean kissed him over and over again and, though neither of them spoke throughout, his brother was more gentle with him than anyone ever had been with him ever.  
  
Jessica was always on Sam's mind, but as Dean made love to him in the dim light of their shared bedroom in the foster home, she wasn't. All he could think was,  _Finally._  
  
_Finally. Finally._  
  
And it was only afterwards as they lay together in silence, that Sam realized why that was.  
  
They were born to be together. And now they finally were.  
  
Sam fell asleep that night in his brother's arms. The twin bed was a little small for the both of them, but he'd never been more comfortable in his life.  
  
And he couldn't stop thinking.  
  
_Finally._

* * *

Early dawn light shone through the thin curtains that covered the window in the bedroom Sam Winchester shared with his brother Dean Winchester in the foster home they'd been taken to after Sam had tried to kill himself and it'd been revealed his father had been sexually abusing him. It danced across the beige carpeting and up onto the pillow where Sam lay sleeping. It played across his eyelids, waking him up far earlier than he wanted to be.  
  
Sam's eyes flickered from the sun rising out his window to the digital clock sitting on their dresser. It read 6:45. He expected to feel a wave of tiredness wash over him, to want to curl back up in Dean's arms for another few hours. It was Saturday. He could sleep as long as he wanted.  
  
But to his surprise, he felt wide awake. He felt ready to get up and face the day.  
  
Glancing back at his brother, Sam smiled and then blushed, remembering the night before. He wondered how this would change things now, but he found that even if it were in a bad way, he wouldn't mind. He would take life how it was thrown at him. He would find peace. He would survive. He had Dean and that was all that mattered.  
  
Sam pushed himself up out of bed, grabbing his pajama bottoms up off the floor and pulling them on as he went to stand at the window. He stared out at the world. It looked like summer was finally gone. There was a thin layer of frost on everything outside and more than half of the trees had already either lost their leaves or still had a few brightly colored ones hanging on, refusing to give in to winter's grasp just yet.  
  
_But what does the winter bring if not yet another spring?_  
  
He wasn't sure where he'd heard that before, but he found himself nodding to himself as he continued to stare out at the world that was lit up pink and orange by the sun's rays, breaking over the horizon. Winters would always come, but spring would too. He just had to survive the cold to get to see the flowers again.  
  
He felt a hand on his arm and he jumped.  
  
Jess had appeared, standing beside him, smiling up at him, holding back the curtain so she could see the world outside a little better. "You see?"she said, her smile widening by a fraction."Everything's…alright."  
  
Sam didn't look at her, but he smiled back, the first real genuine smile he could remember having in a very long time. "I know," he whispered. "I'm not alone." He glanced back at Dean, still sleeping soundly on the bed and his smile widened. "Not anymore."


End file.
